


Go My Way

by SkysongMA



Category: Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Genre: F/M, No Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-01-19 10:59:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1466971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkysongMA/pseuds/SkysongMA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To get out of a bad deal with Amber, Shilo makes a deal with Graverobber. But Graverobber's not who he seems, and Amber doesn't like letting people go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Double Dealing

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't mark this as underage because Shilo and 'Robber never have sex, but if you think I should change that, let me know.

There was nowhere for her to go. The limo hadn't taken her anywhere, and she wasn't ready to go home, not with her father's swan song ringing in her ears and her head spinning as everything she knew stood on its head.  
   
She didn't really know how she ran into him—it always seemed to work that way. He was standing on a street corner, leaning against a streetlamp and balancing a needle on the tip of his finger. Shilo stared at him blankly. He hadn't changed, and that was impossible.  _Everything_  had changed: she was free, her father was dead, GeneCo was up in the air. "Graverobber?"  
   
"Need some Z, kid? You keep asking but never taking." He tossed the needle in the air without looking at her. Slowly, Shilo shook her head. This all had to be a dream, just a dream. "Eh, don't matter anyway. I'm still cleaned out."  
   
"Graverobber." Her voice broke. He raised his eyebrows. "I don't know what to do."  
   
Graverobber slowly raised and lowered both shoulders, lifting his head up to look at her. He blinked a few times, but then he glanced at the floating screens that still showed the carnage from the opera and nodded. "Can't tell you that, kid. That's something everybody's got to figure out for themselves." Shilo opened her mouth, but Graverobber just shook his head. "Go home, kid. Before the scalpel sluts show up."  
   
Shilo watched him walk away; every one of his footsteps whispered that she was alone in the world. What would she do now, without her father to keep her cooped up, without her mother's ghost haunting every moment of her life? Where would she go?  
   
Home seemed like the best answer. Turning her face toward her house, Shilo tried not to think about what she would do after that.  
   
O-o-O-o-O  
   
Shilo shuddered as the Gentern attached the hairpiece to the back of her head. Her own hair was growing back, but it wasn't long enough to do anything fancy with just yet. And opera was all about  _fancy._  Another Gentern taped on fake nails—no more black nail polish for her, no, these were bright florid colors that sparked and flickered with faulty LEDs. She didn't even want to think about the dress she would have to wear tonight.  
   
The communicator on her wrist beeped, and a little hologram of Amber appeared above it. "Are you done getting ready  _yet_?" Amber demanded in her shrill, shrill voice that always made Shilo's ears hurt, made her wish that Amber would buy a new pair of vocal chords for once instead of wasting all her time getting new faces. But Amber would never do that. She still insisted her voice was better than Shilo's. However, she had been voted down two to one, and Shilo was the Voice of GeneCo.  
   
So much for getting help.  
   
Shilo tried not to look at the hologram—she needed no reminders of her duties now—but her reflection was the only other thing to look at, and that was worse. It made her remember what she was now. Was there anything left of Shilo Wallace but her name?  
   
O-o-O-o-O  
   
The kid ran her hands over the gravestone, her lips mouthing the words. Ah, Nathan. Natch. Half-respectfully, Graverobber hadn't desecrated that particular corpse yet. After all, there were still dozens of mass graves he could find his way into.  
   
Graverobber turned away and glanced around the cemetary. Picked over that one, picked over that one—somebody was watching him. Slowly, in case that "someone" happened to be holding a gun, Graverobber turned his head. Oh. Never mind. Just her, staring at him.  
   
"Law of averages said you'd have to be here sooner or later." She sounded almost smug. What was her name—Silo?  _Shilo_. Weird name for a girl. She folded her arms beneath her breasts. Thin shirt for a cold day. Graverobber smirked; nothing wrong with that.  
   
Graverobber put his hands in his pockets, straightening up. Her hair—her own hair, not a wig this time—was halfway to her shoulders. Graverobber did a little mental math (had it really been that long?)… yep, couple months. Huh. "Desperation makes you dance to its beat eventually." Leaning back on his heels, he smirked again. "But you would know all about that, wouldn't you?"  
   
Shilo scowled, pulling her shirt down. "I'm not the one robbing bodies," she replied, but without much vigor. Graverobber wrinkled his nose. This wouldn't be any fun if she didn't play along. She sighed. After a moment, she stepped around her father's grave and beckoned for him to come closer. "I don't have much time, okay? Come here. I need to talk to you."  
   
He shook his head. "I'll take a pass on that, kid. I'm willing to bet your guards know my face, and I don't have an extra on me." He paused, twitching his mouth to one side. "What do you want?"  
   
Shilo made a disgusted noise and held up her wrist. A dark steel box on a bracelet glimmered in the moonlight. "Look, I can't go any farther away from the grave, okay? If I do, this will go off, and…  well." She shrugged. "Not that I'd really mind, but I went to all this trouble just to find you, so the least you could do is hear me out." She smiled thinly, her mouth like the needle Graverobber always carried. Kinda hot, really. "You already know what trouble I'm in. I'm willing to bet you can get me out, and I'll collect my weight in Zydrate for you if you help me."  
   
Graverobber put his hands on his hips. He did indeed know what kind of trouble Shilo was in: the word on the street was Amber treated Shilo like a pet dog, always dragging her around on a leash. He wasn't sure if he wanted to get himself in that deep… but since Amber had become one of the heads of GeneCo, she no longer needed him for her fix, and therefore Graverobber hadn't gotten to mess with her lately- in any sense of the word. Also, he was bored… but Shilo was such a  _skinny_  girl. "Make it my weight," said Graverobber, "and we have a deal."  
   
Shilo sighed, but she nodded and held her wrist toward him. "First of all, can you get this off?"  
   
Graverobber chewed on the inside of his cheek, inspecting her choice of jewelry. Cheap, cheap, cheap. All it needed was a paste stone. "You'd think Amber would do better," he muttered, taking a thin piece of metal from his pocket. "After all, this is why she didn't give you an entourage, right?" Frowning a little, Shilo nodded. She probably wasn't used to having anyone this close to her. Maybe this night would be entertaining after all. "Hold it up a little higher, sweetcheeks—I need to see." Shilo scowled; she looked like she wanted to kick him, but she complied anyway. "There we go."  
   
Graverobber slid the metal inbetween the rough leather of the bracelet and the smooth iron of its little tracker. There would be a catch right—ah! Perfect, as usual. The top of the box popped open, revealing a dozen little lights and even more wires. "As simple as A," he pulled out two wires, "B," switched them, "and C," he plucked a single wire completely. All the little lights stopped flashing, and Graverobber shut the box. He took out a thin knife from his belt and cut through the leather; the bracelet clattered to the ground. Shilo jumped away like it was a snake. "So that's one thing got out of the way, but I'm willing to bet you got something else to take care of, and we'd better do it now. That will have set off alarms somewhere." He raised his eyebrows.  
   
Shilo sighed, pulling her shirt down again. Graverobber figured there was something under it she wanted to hide, but he was more interested in what she kept revealing: her breasts were nothing special, but the moonlight made her pale skin sort of… glow. Very hot. "Yeah, but I'm willing to bet that's going to take longer to get rid of. Come over by my mom and I'll show you."  
   
Graverobber blinked, and Shilo nodded at the crypt behind them. Ah. Made sense now why Nathan was buried here—obviously one of the tricks Amber or Pavi had used to buy her off. Luigi wouldn't have the brains to think of what to do with a body; he only cared about the killing. Shilo took a key from her pocket and unlocked the giant padlock that covered the door. Only a formality, really; it wouldn't stop any robber worth his salt. Marni was probably too moldy for any good product, though. She shoved hard when the door stuck. Not quite as delicate as she looked, perhaps.  
   
Oh, this was going to be fun.  
   
Like she and the corpse inside were old friends, Shilo sat down on the half-open tomb. "Make yourself at home," she murmured, crossing and uncrossing her legs as she reached around in her pockets for something. Matches. She tossed him a pack and gestured for him to light a torch in one of the sconces behind him. It didn't offer much light, but it was better than nothing. When she did nothing, Graverobber raised his eyebrows.  
   
Shilo took a deep breath and stood up again, rolling up her shirt. Holographic ink on her hip glinted in the flickering light—a bar code. Ah. So that was how Amber kept tabs on her. Any GeneCo building Shilo walked by would register that code, telling Amber where she was. "Do you know how to get rid of it?" Shilo asked. There was something like hope in her voice, but not really; Graverobber was willing to bet she had lost all ability to muster much after her father's death.  
   
Graverobber frowned, rubbing his chin. "Well, I know how to find something to erase it, but that'll take time."  
   
Shilo scowled, pulling down her shirt. She smoothed it over her stomach like she was afraid the shimmering ink might still be visible. "Time I don't really have, unless you've got somewhere I could stay."  
   
Running his hands through his hair, Graverobber looked her up and down slowly. Shilo recoiled a little bit—good. She hadn't been scared near enough. "I've got a place," he said finally. "Little bit more private, little bit more quiet. You can stay there… if you get me a little more Zydrate."  
   
Shilo shrugged, tried to look tough and failed. She was about as tough as a windshield with a crack in it—one good slug… "What's a few more corpses?" Her voice was light, airy, but her eyes were frightened, and she hugged herself, like she feared his breath would blow her away.  
   
"Well!" said Graverobber, clapping his hands together. "Then I suppose we have a deal. First, we need to get out of here—GenCops coming. They know I like this part of town." He held out his arm with a smirk better suited to the devil's own lips; he had spent months perfecting it. Shilo hesitated, but her mouth firmed, and she placed her hand on his elbow.  
   
He led her out into the night, out into the darkness, and it swallowed them both.


	2. Lullaby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her eyes wide in the dim room, Shilo looked around. For a breath or two, she was the little scaredy-cat he had stumbled over at her mother's tomb. Graverobber wrinkled his nose. "You should have that backbone taken back," he commented, lighting the candles that lined the walls. "Seems like faulty merchandise, the way it keeps disappearing."
> 
> Shilo frowned. Better. Much. "All of my parts are my own, thank you very much. I don't want to owe those bastards anymore than I have—" She broke off, running her hand over the raw spot where her bracelet had been. "But they own me anyway, so it doesn't really matter."

Graverobber's place was neither a hole in the ground nor a chintzy apartment, but the skulls on the wall gave it a little homey touch. Made it his own, like. This had been a furniture showroom at one time, but judging by the bloodstains on the wall, the owner had been repossessed. Therefore, it made a perfect home for Graverobber… and whoever chose to come with him. "Not what you're used to, I'm sure, but it's my kind of place." He pushed the door shut and double-locked it; they hadn't passed any GeneCo facilities, but it never hurt to be too careful.  
   
Her eyes wide in the dim room, Shilo looked around. For a breath or two, she was the little scaredy-cat he had stumbled over at her mother's tomb. Graverobber wrinkled his nose. "You should have that backbone taken back," he commented, lighting the candles that lined the walls. "Seems like faulty merchandise, the way it keeps disappearing."  
   
Shilo frowned. Better. Much. "All of my parts are my own, thank you very much. I don't want to owe those bastards anymore than I have—" She broke off, running her hand over the raw spot where her bracelet had been. "But they own me anyway, so it doesn't really matter."  
   
"They own everybody, whether they know it or not. Don't take it so personally." Shilo's frown turned up a little, and she stared at him like she was trying to figure out what he was thinking. Good luck with that.  _He_  didn't even know half the time—came from spending too much time around Zydrate and its followers. Graverobber shrugged. He pointed at a mattress in the corner. "That there is my room, and you, sweet cheeks, can pick wherever you'd like to rest your hat at night."  
   
Shilo glanced around, still hugging herself, and sat down on one of the cleaner couches scattered about the large room.  She took a deep breath and let out slowly, like she'd been holding it a lot longer than a few seconds. Like she'd been holding it her whole life, maybe.  
Graverobber tossed his head. Shilo almost made him miss Amber—the girl was a zombie, but wasn't that most of her appeal? And at least Amber only made him horny, not poetic. Poems were for an older world where the gutters were full of water, not cast-off intestines. Covering his face with one hand, he sat down on his bed. It would be daylight soon. He had wasted the best hunting time with her.   
   
Shilo looked over at him, her big deer eyes wide and unsure. Graverobber sat up a little and blew out the candles behind his head. "Best get some sleep, kid," he said, flipping some of his long hair over his shoulders. "We start tom—" He paused, drawing aside one of his curtains for a moment and wincing at the fake sunlight. "Tonight."  
   
As she looked down at her hands, Shilo's face slowly hardened. She kept flashing between girl and woman, girl and woman. It made him nauseous. He had stopped being a boy long ago, hadn't been difficult, so why couldn't she pick something and stick with it so he wouldn't feel so damn… sorry? She touched her hair with one hand, carefully, almost a caress. Then she lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye through the grime and the darkness. "I need your knife."  
   
"What d'you need it for, sweet cheeks?" She tugged one of her black curls, and Graverobber arched a brow. Ah. He patted his pockets—where had he set that thing? Something pricked his thumb; he switched hands and pulled the knife out, sucking the blood off his fingers. Sometimes copper, sometimes salt. Always good. Running the flat of the knife back and forth across his lips and cheeks, Graverobber stood up and walked over to her.  
   
Shilo reached for the knife, her eyes almost eager, but Graverobber snatched his hand away, holding it beyond her reach. "Ah ah ah," he murmured, leaning toward her. Shilo flinched away, but Graverobber ignored that; he set his knife in its sheath and took another step toward her. For a moment, he was tempted to lay a hand on her breast so he could feel the hummingbird-rhythm of her heart, pinch nipples taut with fear—but he didn't. There would be time enough for that. Instead, he rested gentle fingers in her hair and traced its length two or three times. No greasy dreadlocks for her. This hair must be her pride and joy.  
   
Shuddering like a rabbit in a cage, Shilo looked up at him with eyes full of fright and something else, a hard edge that concealed whatever lurked behind it. Girl/woman, woman/girl. "What are you doing?" she asked, her voice both scared and scary, dead and deadly. She was afraid, but she would make him pay for it.  
   
Graverobber smiled, but not really; it felt like a smile but looked more like a grimace. "Hair like this should be treasured, sweetling," said Graverobber. "You don't see it every day." He touched it again, and then he cupped the back of her head for a moment like he was going to pull her face toward his, feeling her hair trail like water past his fingertips. Delicious. With his free hand, he brought out the knife and held it up in the space between them. There was a spot of blood on it still; he licked it off and held the blade out to her.  
   
Shilo grabbed the knife and backed away, like she was afraid of what else he might do. Furtively, like she was trying to hide it from him, she touched her hair where he had touched her. Graverobber resisted the urge to smirk; she had never been touched that way. Her eyes hardened again, and she drew the knife through her hair at ear-length in brisk but uncertain strokes. The cut was uneven, almost disgusting, and it only made her look younger. "There," she muttered when it was done, setting the knife aside as though she thought it would bite her fingers. "Now at least I have some chance of people not recognizing me."  
   
Graverobber didn't take his eyes from her face. So fragile, like a little china doll left on the streets for dead. She would be very pretty if she didn't look like jailbait. "I have hair dye you can use," he mentioned, and Shilo nodded, touching the shorn ends of her hair with one hand as she brushed the cut strands off the couch. Graverobber retreated to his own bed and sat down again. "Be good, kid, and blow out your light."  
   
"It's Shilo," she muttered, but without much force. Most of her resistance had disappeared with her hair, and she clutched her thin dress more tightly around her. She needed some nails to keep her on the ground, or she would just drift away.  
   
Graverobber sighed and fell back on his bed so he could look at something else. There was nothing wrong with her face, but she made him think too much. A moment later, he heard quiet whispers as she blew out the candles near her couch and then soft footsteps as she approached him. He frowned, but she walked around the edge of his bed and extinguished the last candle, leaving them in darkness. "I can't sleep if there's light," she whispered, walking away. As his eyes adjusted, Graverobber caught a glance of the pale backs of her thighs. Now there was a sight he could live with.  
   
O-o-O-o-O  
   
Graverobber was a light sleeper. He had desensitized himself to the sounds of the city and the light that filtered through the moth-eaten curtains that covered the windows, but he had trained himself to react to human noises in a blink. He was awake and half out of bed before he realized he had heard not footsteps nor cries… but a gentle whimper, like a frightened animal. Wrinkling his nose, Graverobber recalled that he had a guest. He fished in his pocket for a match and lit it with his thumb, blinking to adjust faster to the light.  
   
Shilo was curled up on the couch hugging her knees, her eyes like dark portals to nowhere in the emptiness of his place. Usually, Graverobber liked that his place was huge, but for some reason her eyes made it seem a waste of space—there were a million fathoms in her eyes, a thousand miles to walk. No real path could compare. She glanced up at him and away, her pupils contracting and ruining the effect.  
   
"That was you?" Shilo nodded, her eyes turning sullen. She kept her face averted, refused to look at him. That was okay, that was typical. Graverobber sat back down on his bed, popping the match in his mouth.  
   
"Don't—" Another little whimper, this one almost a scream, escaped her; he heard a little slap that suggested she had covered her mouth quickly, violently, to suppress it.  
   
"Thought you couldn't sleep with the lights on, sweet cheeks."  
   
"Shilo," she said, her voice a brittle snap in the darkness. "It's Shilo." She paused, and then her words tumbled out like dead bodies from a GeneCo truck. "I don't want to go back to sleep. I—I have nightmares. Bad ones."  
   
Graverobber bit his tongue so he wouldn't sigh. He didn't mind that the girl seemed to like him, even trust him. That could be useful in the long run, and he wanted to hold onto that. But  _girls_ … Amber had always cried after sex, no matter how stoned she was; it wasn't until years after they started that she finally told him her father had raped her when she was a child.   
  
Nightmares! Honestly. The first time he had had to hide beneath a dead body, Graverobber had had nightmares… but they had passed. It had been months since Nathan died, and it certainly hadn't taken that long for Graverobber to get over his fears… had it?  
   
He shook his head and sighed. Useless. Running long nails through his longer hair, he got up and sat on the opposite end of the couch. Shilo squeaked, but he didn't come near her; he knew every inch of this place by heart, since he often couldn't afford to have a light. "So sing, kid."  
   
"What?" Her voice wasn't always dead like his or Amber's, and he supposed that was why she made such a good Voice of GeneCo: her heart spilled out almost every time she opened her mouth.  _Almost_. Sometimes it had the decency to stay hidden like everyone else's.  
   
Graverobber scowled and lit another match, holding it in the space between them. Shilo leaned toward the light, her body welcoming it even as one hand clutched the couch as though to keep her from coming any closer to him. "Sing, kid. There ain't nothing better for keeping the bad dreams away. Why do you think I sing when I work?"  
   
Her face blanker than a corpse's, Shilo blinked at him. Graverobber sighed. He wanted to go back to sleep, but he wouldn't be able to if she whined all night. Singing, though… well, there was nothing like a lullaby. Even Amber's screechy drone had always lulled him easy enough. She got quieter after she had a few fixes and a few quick fucks, and then her voice was almost tolerable.  
   
He hummed at first; when Shilo didn't pick up on it, he sighed again—"You're killing me, kid," without actually saying it—and started to sing whatever popped into his head. Little snatches of opera, even a few GeneCo jingles. Shilo only stared at him at first, her eyes wide and empty, but then she slid her shaky soprano in alongside his voice and harmonized. Her eyes drifted shut, and she fell back across the couch, her mouth open just a little.  
   
Graverobber glanced at his wrist before realizing he didn't wear a watch. The match burned down to his hand; he hissed and threw it away, popping his fingers in his mouth. Oh, well. Same old, same old. He whistled something—Blind Mag's song, maybe, he couldn't really remember—and wandered back over to his own bed.  
   
Shilo did not wake again; silence reigned for the rest of the day.


	3. Hair Dye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graverobber smirked, sitting back on his heels. "Ah, yeah, but I do that on purpose. It isn't cool if it happens by accident." Shilo opened her mouth. "Who is the senior partner here?" She closed her mouth, but she let out a deep sigh anyway. "None of that, kid. We'll make a graverobber out of you yet."
> 
> Shilo started buttoning up the coat. "I can't be a graverobber," she muttered under her breath. "You're Graverobber. If I were a graverobber, then who would you be? I'm Shilo."

Graverobber's whistling woke her up. Shilo sat up slowly, rubbing muscles stiff from sleeping in a strange position. A flickering lamp lit the far side of the room; a loud thumping came from somewhere down the street. Graverobber stood in front of a cracked, rusty mirror, shaving his chin with his knife. The faces he made reminded Shilo of the faces she always made when she put on her makeup, but at least she didn't have to worry about cutting herself when she was applying eyeliner. "What time is it?" she asked.  
   
Graverobber only paused long enough to say, "Time to get going." Then he started whistling again—a tricky task. It must've taken practice. How did people practice things when they hadn't spent their entire life with nowhere to go? Graverobber seemed like a busy man to her; she had seen posters of him all over the place, and there were always new crimes on the list.  
   
Shilo got up and stretched. She wished she could have brought some other clothing with her, but what was she supposed to tell Amber? "I'm just slipping out to visit Daddy… I thought I'd sleep over?" Yeah, right. Never mind that it wasn't like Amber was ever straight enough to know what Shilo was talking about anyway. Now that she could get as much Zydrate—and as much knifework—as she wanted without having to worry about going to the streets, Amber was never in her right mind. If any of that family  _had_  a right mind. She had other ways of keeping tabs on Shilo anyway.  
   
Shilo rubbed the raw spot on her wrist and let out a deep breath. Graverobber glanced at her and quickly looked away. He did that a lot, like he thought she would be able to figure out what he was thinking if he let her look too long.

As if. Shilo didn't know anything about people. She hugged herself. That was what got her into this mess, wasn't it?

She watched Graverobber rinse off his knife, dry it, and replace it in his belt, and all the while a question ducked and weaved behind her lips, trying to escape:  _Can I trust you?_  She hadn't been able to trust any of the Largos, and she didn't have any family left, so who in the world could an orphan cling to? In desperation, she had pinned all of her hopes onto him, and now all she could do was pray that he didn't let her down.  
   
If she asked him, he would know, and he would break her; Shilo knew this like she knew the air she took in with every breath was toxic and that her father's love was worse.  
   
So she couldn't ask him, she would just have to hope, and that hope kept popping up when she didn't want it to, leaking into her face and her words. Oh, it was just too much. She had to trust him, couldn't let him know that she trusted him, could barely let  _herself_  know that she trusted him. Elsewise, she would have another betrayal on her hands, another Daddy, and this one wouldn't heal clean. Her father cared about her; Graverobber just wanted his money. There would be nothing to make it okay.  
   
She would have no one left.  
   
O-o-O-o-O  
   
Graverobber didn't care that the kid was staring at him. There wasn't much she  _could_  do but stare, and everything about his appearance was designed to attract attention. But he also couldn't help wondering what she was thinking as she stared. The only women he hung around with were scalpel sluts and Amber, and with them it was easy enough to guess: they wanted Zydrate; that was the only reason they would stand the sight of him. But what did Shilo want?  
   
Shilo followed him with her eyes, reaching under her dress to scratch the tattoo on her stomach. Ah, of course. He was losing his edge. There was only one desire in little Shilo's mind:  _freedom_. She had wanted to be free from her father, then her genetics, and now she wanted to be free from Amber and GeneCo. "Good luck with that," Graverobber muttered under his breath.  
   
"What?" Shilo asked, her head jerking up. "Did you say something?"  
   
Shaking his head, Graverobber walked over to a beat-up old chest in the corner and opened it with great care. He whistled sharply. Shilo blinked a few times and didn't move. With a great sigh, he pointed to the space next to him. "C'mere, kid. We gotta get you armed, don't we?"  
   
Keeping her arms close to her, the kid scurried over. Graverobber smirked. She had been all tough last night, but he was willing to bet she was so quiet now because the thought of ramming needles into skulls had finally come home. It always did, and it always made them quiet. Graverobber took out a coat rather like his own—it would be too big, but anything of his would be huge on her. She was such a  _scrawny_  thing. "We'll dye your hair later," he said, gesturing for her to hold out her arms. "First, we have to make up for last night's haul."  
   
"Can't I just fix my hair now?" said Shilo, looking at the coat with a mixture of distaste and fear. Typical. She allowed him to put it on her, however, even though she was completely swamped in it. Fidgeting with it, she discovered one of the myriad hidden pockets. "What—?" She drew out a little leather packet that clinked with needles and vials.  
   
"Spares, sweet thing—you're going to need plenty if you're going to get me that much Zydrate," said Graverobber, digging around in the chest for—aha. His spare gun. "I've only got the two of these, so you'd better not lose this." Shilo took it like it was something dead, and, in a way, it was. It carried death, led to it, nothing but. "There." Graverobber stood up and brushed off his knees. "And no."  
   
Shilo put her hands on her hips. Ah. There was some spirit. "Why not?" she demanded, putting the Zydrate gun in one of her pockets. "It'd save us time."  
   
Graverobber stopped what he was doing and looked at her incredulously. "Kid, look at the job you did cutting your hair. You sure as hell ain't dying it. Do you want to look like a total freak?"  
   
Shilo made a little gasping sound like she was outraged at his sheer audacity. Graverobber bit the inside of his cheek so he wouldn't grin. This was fun. It was nice to be spending time with someone who wasn't zoned out or trying to get zoned out for once. " _Me_ , a freak?" she half-shrieked, half-whispered, glancing around as though she was sure her voice would bring someone running. "This coming from the guy with the rainbow dreadlocks?"  
   
Graverobber smirked, sitting back on his heels. "Ah, yeah, but I do that on purpose. It isn't cool if it happens by accident." Shilo opened her mouth. "Who is the senior partner here?" She closed her mouth, but she let out a deep sigh anyway. "None of that, kid. We'll make a graverobber out of you yet."  
   
Shilo started buttoning up the coat. "I can't be a graverobber," she muttered under her breath. "You're Graverobber. If I were a graverobber, then who would you be? I'm Shilo."  
   
Shaking his head, Graverobber said, "You're weird, kid. Weird, weird, weird." He patted her cheek and pulled the collar up around her chin; it covered half her face. Perfect. A little of his facepaint and her own father wouldn't know her if he passed her in the street. 'Course, that meant nothing to her tattoo, but he would look into that while they were harvesting. "Graverobbing's just my job. But everybody calls me that, so why correct 'em?"  
   
Shilo blinked a few times like she'd honestly never considered that he could have a real name. Graverobber rolled his eyes. Some people just had no concept of how the world worked… but, then, she had been locked in a broom closet for seventeen years. A little naivete was to be expected. "Then what  _is_  your  name?"  
   
Graverobber scoffed, pulling his little jar of cold cream out of his pocket. He smeared it across Shilo's cheeks with his fingers, grinning when she flinched. "That ain't something you get to learn the first day on the job."  
   
Shilo knocked his hand away and grabbed the jar from him, rubbing it across the rest of her face with artless but workable strokes. "Well, it doesn't seem very fair to me," she declared, trying to see her face in the mirror. "You know everything about me—everyone does—but I don't know anything about you except that you deal drugs." She paused and looked him straight in the eye with her eyebrows raised. "And that you used to screw Amber."  
   
Whistling through his laughter, Graverobber said, "Language, language! We can't have any of that dirty talk—we have no decency as is." Shilo stared at him. "Sheesh, kid, learn to take a joke." He grabbed the cold cream back and tucked it away. "I would think that you would have learned life isn't fair already. Seems to me you've had plenty of chances to figure that out."  
   
Shilo frowned with sadness instead of anger; he'd struck a nerve. "Well, no, it isn't, but that doesn't mean I should stop wishing it were… does it?"  
   
So he wouldn't burst out laughing again, Graverobber bit his tongue. There was no reason to crush the girl; the world would do that soon enough, and do a better job than he ever could. She actually seemed to think he was going to give her an honest answer to that question! She thought he had all the answers! Him, a wasted, strung-out sex addict stuck wandering the streets stealing from junkies and stiffs. He felt a sudden lump in his throat—if only he still believed that. Woulda been nice, like.  
   
Instead of laughing (or crying), Graverobber clapped her on the back and said nothing except, "Let's get started."


	4. Harvests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shilo nudged over one of the bodies so it was face-up. "Through the nose, right?" she whispered. "Just like through a bug." Graverobber made a vague gesture that could have meant "Yeah, yeah," or possibly "Go fuck yourself."

Shilo kept turning a needle over and over in her hands, like she wasn't sure what to do with it. Each time her fingers got close to the tip, she would twitch and almost drop it. Having flashbacks to her first time, poor dear. Graverobber shook his head. Sure, getting your first harvest from your mom's corpse must have been weird, but not  _that_  weird.  
   
Ah, well. She'd get through it well enough. She was a clever girl; there were few people who were as unwilling to sell themselves. He'd seen her sing for the commercials—no soul. Might as well have been a robot or a Gentern.  _And_  she'd escaped. A lot more than most people could say.  
   
She followed him like a misplaced shadow, slipping along just behind but never near enough to bump into him. Glancing up at the angle of the moon, Graverobber kicked open a side door, revealing a room full of bodies in various states of decay and disrepair. "Broke the alarm a long time ago," he explained, taking out his own gun. "This here's neutral territory—if we get separated, you come back here and wait." Shilo opened her mouth. "Unless you  _want_  to go from the Voice of Geneco to a scalpel slut. That could always be arranged. Most of the other Z-collectors around here ain't as nice as I am." He took out one of his full vials and shook it. Shilo flinched. "Good girl."  
   
Shilo nudged over one of the bodies so it was face-up. "Through the nose, right?" she whispered. "Just like through a bug." Graverobber made a vague gesture that could have meant "Yeah, yeah," or possibly "Go fuck yourself." It was all relative anyway. He kicked over a pile of corpses and started harvest.  
   
When he noticed Shilo was still hesitating, he said, "You know, it's gonna take a long while to make one of me if you don't get a move on. GenCops come in here 'round midnight, so we have to be packed off by eleven. And the next burning ground's a long ride."  
   
Shilo took in a deep breath and shoved a needle into her corpse's nose with ultimate determination. As her face turned from graphite to diamond, Graverobber grinned. He'd never worked with a partner before, but she'd do. Oh, she'd do.  
   
O-o-O-o-O  
   
Everything was broken. The streets were dirty, Z-ed out zombies wandered the alleys, you couldn't walk two steps without tripping over a body. Why had she ever wanted to leave her room? It wasn't worth it; the world had died years before she was born. There was nothing to see here, nothing worth her time.  
   
Shilo clung to the bar on the back of the truck while Graverobber sorted out his tools. He seemed pleased with her first haul, counting the little vials with his tongue between his teeth. "Don't they notice?" Shilo asked, nodding at the front of the truck. "Or don't they care?"  
   
"They can't see what I'm doing, and they're used to hitchhikers," Graverobber muttered. He did a little math on his fingers and grinned. "Not bad, kid, not bad. Be a long while before you're free of me, mind you, but not bad."  
   
Shilo rubbed the back of her neck and sort-of-smiled, sort-of-grimaced. She was never quite sure where she stood with Graverobber. Whenever she was around him, the world cracked and shook under her feet. Nowhere was stable, nothing could be counted on not to change.  
   
…Well, he didn't, she supposed, but Graverobber was creepy.  
   
Graverobber wrapped up his stuff and jumped up. "Here's our stop, kid. Need any more needles?" Shilo jumped off, staring at the ground. She couldn't see it shaking, but she could feel it—who  _was_  she? Shilo Wallace didn't rob graves, hoard Zydrate… but Shilo Wallace had been weak. A frightened little thing. She didn't want to be that anymore. She had gone from letting her father control her to letting Amber do it. But she really didn't want to be like Graverobber, either.  
   
There had to be someplace inbetween: someplace where she wasn't frightened of her own shadow but wasn't letting other people lead her around by the ear, where she could make it in this world without feeling like she had lost her soul. She tried to remember that sense of triumph she had felt after leaving the opera... but her memories were dust. She hadn't done anything with that; she had let the world break her to bridle, made herself the good little slave again. Her fingernails bit into her palm; she had to stand up for herself now. Once she had paid back Graverobber, she would leave this damn city and find someplace better. Someplace brighter.  
   
Shilo let her chin fall onto her chest. This was all too much for now; she needed to keep things simple. Rough, slightly sweaty fingers gripped her jaw and turned her face up, holding her too tightly to be comfortable. He was trying to scare her again. "People'll think I beat you if you keep looking like that," said Graverobber. Staring straight back into his eyes—if Shilo Wallace wasn't scared anymore, she had to prove it—she studied his expression. He was sizing her up, and he seemed pleased. Something else lurked behind the pleasure, but she had no name for that. It sent shivers that were half-pleasant and half-frightening up and down her spine until she looked away.  
   
"If people are going to assume anything, it won't be that you beat me," Shilo muttered, running a hand through her hair. She had worked so hard to be able to feel her own real hair—but that was life. She had lost other things, bigger things. She would live.  
   
Graverobber threw back his head and laughed at the stars, clutching his chest with one hand like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. Shilo rolled her eyes. He hadn't made a big, overacted gesture lately—it had to happen sooner or later.  
   
After he finished, he straightened up and walked over to a stretch of bricks that was—if one squinted—perhaps a little paler than the rest. He kicked it, and a door appeared in the wall. The smell of ammonia and rot drifted out; Shilo covered her nose and tried not to cough. Graverobber didn't appear to smell anything. He gestured for her to go through the door first.  
   
When Shilo hesitated, Graverobber glanced around as though he couldn't understand why she wouldn't want to walk through a door into a room full of decaying bodies. She hadn't hesitated before, of course, but that was mostly because she had seen that room before. That made it a little more okay. His eyes lit on a puddle in front of the door. "Ah." He shrugged off his coat—removing the vial pouch before he did so—and draped it across the puddle with the inside facing the sky.  
   
Shilo blinked.  
   
"Sheesh, you try to treat a girl like a lady these days," he muttered, shaking his head. He bowed with one of those flippy little hand gestures. Still staring at him, Shilo stepped on his jacket and into the mass grave. She had seen a lot of weird things, but he was consistently the only thing she couldn't believe was real.  
   
O-o-O-o-O  
   
The smell was a thousand times worse in the room itself; Shilo gagged and bent over, coughing. Even with his burned-out nose, Graverobber could smell it too. He sighed and pulled a little mask out from his pocket. "Here. This'll help a little."  
   
Shilo took it, but she was coughing too hard to put it on: every time her hands reached for her face, she started off on another hacking spree. Graverobber sighed with exasperation he didn't really feel—he remembered what it was like to get a start in this business—and slipped the mask over her face for her. He gripped her shoulders until she could stand up straight again and studied her large eyes. A little bit of fear there, that was to be expected. She didn't know what he wanted when he touched her (hell, he didn't even know), and that was frightening. Mostly, though, there was just resentment, rotting in her eyes.  
   
He patted her shoulder and let go of her. "You gotta learn to move past stuff, kid, or you'll never get anywhere in the world," he commented, turning to the nearest pile of bodies. He whistled a snatch of a GeneCo jingle as he took out an empty syringe and started in on the nearest corpse. Might've once been a lovely girl, but there were gaping holes where her eyes used to be, and a long, torn patch of skin on her chest. Repo victim.  
   
Shilo made an incredulous noise that turned into another cough. When she had her breath back, she knelt on the slimy floor and started on a different pile. She had a decent work ethic, anyway. "My father  _poisoned_  me for seventeen years. That's not the kind of thing you deal with overnight."  
   
"Wounds turn septic quick, kid," Graverobber replied, kicking over the dead woman to get to the man beneath her. "If you don't amputate, they'll spread, and then your whole body locks up—brain first, though. Hate only makes you slow."  
   
"I don't hate my dad!" Her voice was shrill and sharp, and there was only a thin layer of truth covering the denial. She seemed to realize this; when she spoke again, her voice was quieter, more contemplative. "He was the only person who loved  _me_ —me, Shilo Wallace. He didn't want revenge for my mother's actions or my voice. He just… he loved me." Her voice cracked, and Graverobber focused very hard on the skinny Asian guy's nostrils; he suspected she was crying, and that was none of his business.  
   
She let out a long and shaky breath, and he judged that it was safe to speak again. "I'll admit," he murmured, "you do have a better reason to be angry than most. But people do stupid things when they're in love—it's part of the job description."  
   
Putting her hands on her hips, Shilo stood up. Her head was tilted and her eyes skeptical in that way only teenagers can manage since they are the only people convinced they know everything. "What on earth would you know about love?" she demanded. Graverobber glanced at her, and Shilo set her syringe on the ground, a clear message that she would not be satisfied until he answered. He turned around to face her and stared right back. "Who was it,  _Amber_?" Her voice was slick with disgust, flavored with perhaps a pinch of jealousy.  
   
Graverobber laughed low in his throat, shaking his head. "Are you kidding me? Amber wasn't even a half-decent lay—too stoned all the time." Shilo raised her eyebrows; Graverobber looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. There was something about those big brown eyes that made him too willing to tell her things. He knew she just wanted to leave when this was done, and the less familiar they were with each other, the easier it would be to give her what she wanted. And he kind of wanted to do that. It was nice to help someone for once. "I've got family, kid," he muttered, spinning the needle in his hands. "That's pretty much all they're good for."  
   
Looking surprised, Shilo straightened up.  _God_ , wasn't that just like a teenager? When you were that young, you never thought about why anybody else did anything; you just assumed they had always been that way and always would be. She only saw him as an asset, as a guy who robbed graves and got her in and out of trouble. It had never occurred to her to wonder if he had ever been more than that.  
   
…He hadn't, really, but she didn't need to know that. Better for her to wonder, better for her to get the wrong impression, that he was either worse or kinder than truth. It didn't really matter which as long as she didn't know him.  
   
Shilo tilted her head to one side, looking him over. "…Who? Do they know you do this?" Graverobber frowned, and she ducked her head, blushing a little. "That was rude. You don't have to answer. I just… I like knowing about other people's families. Sometimes, they're better."  
   
"I haven't seen mine in a long time," Graverobber muttered, kicking the Asian guy for no real reason. "There's no point—my brother's the only one alive, and he hates me." He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and cleared his throat as he pulled another body toward him. "I, uh… I never knew my mom either, not really." He shoved the syringe up the corpse's nose and watched as the Zydrate filtered in.


	5. Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She wished she could get angry again. It made her feel better, like she was doing something—but she was just angry because Graverobber had made her act her age. 
> 
> She was only seventeen, after all: when she argued with her father, that felt like very old indeed, but when she was shivering on a street corner, waiting for the only person she knew to come outside and say it was okay for her to show her face again… well, she felt like the youngest person in the world.

Shilo looked over her shoulder at him and tried to pretend like she wasn't. They were dancing a delicate step; both felt it by ear, and the music kept changing meter. The worst part was that he didn't know where they were going to end up. There was the intended result, of course, both of them returning to their ordinary lives, but he wasn't sure that would happen anymore. Something told him no. "What happened to her?" she whispered, touching the cameo pendant at her throat. Graverobber focused on the body so he wouldn't stare at the delicate spot where her veins met sternum- always his favorite place to bite during sex. So beautiful.  
   
"She died a little while after I was born—complications from the C-section." Graverobber shrugged. "I never got to know her, so it didn't bother me, but my father and my brother took it personally." He turned his head to one side, contemplative. "However, it did mean I got the only normal name in the family."  
   
Shilo put her hands on her hips. "Which is?" Like a dog with a rat. Graverobber shook his head, and she rolled her eyes and heaved a deep sigh. He resisted the urge to grin and tried to make up an imaginary history of his latest harvest-ee. That always made him grim. The stories were always the same, with just a change of the names and the body parts involved.  
   
On the other side of the room, someone whistled, the kind that could only come from sticking the first and last fingers in the mouth and screaming without screaming, the kind that makes ears bleed three blocks away. Graverobber glanced up, his head whipping from side to side. Not—nope, just Rem. Graverobber let out a mental sigh of relief; he wasn't prepared to deal with a rival dealer, not on Shilo's first night. Rem, however, was perfect: Graverobber had been planning to look him up anyway for help with Shilo's little problem.  
   
Rem put his hands on either side of his corseted waist and looked Graverobber up and down. "What you doin' here?" he demanded. "You're early." Shilo glanced from Graverobber to Rem uncertainly, clutching her necklace like he had once seen her hold her medicine bottle—like it was the only thing keeping her alive.  
   
Graverobber spread his hands and shrugged. With Rem, it was always best to let him do most of the talking. It was hard to predict what would come out of that made-up mouth next, so Graverobber preferred to play his cards close to his vest. Didn't want Amber getting word of his new traveling companion, after all.  
   
Rem shrugged back and started sifting through the bodies. He wasn't a dealer. Mostly, he modeled, but when times were hard, Rem turned to thievery, and he could always be counted on to steal something for a few free hits.  
   
Graverobber caught Shilo's eye and gestured for her to go behind the body stack, out of Rem's line of sight. He turned back to Rem and raised his eyebrows. "Hey, man, I need a favor."  
   
"Don't do 'favors,'" said Rem, holding a broken necklace up to the dim floodlights. He said it like a dirty word, with disgust on his fine-boned face. "I do deals. Got a deal for me, Robber?"  
   
Graverobber heaved a deep sigh—part of doing business with Rem. You had to play it his way, or things would stop before they started. Oh, well. Rem was the only person he knew who would be able to find him something to help Shilo. He just had to do that without letting Rem know about her.  
   
When Rem ducked down to pick up another shiny thing, Graverobber glanced at Shilo again and nodded at the door. Her brows snapped together: anger mixed with fear again. He was getting to like that look; it suited her face, made her look less like jailbait. Graverobber raised his eyebrows, and Shilo dropped her corpse—funny how the squeamishness disappeared so quickly—and stormed out. Quietly.  
   
As he strutted over to Rem, Graverobber rolled his eyes. Teenagers.  
   
O-o-O-o-O  
   
Shilo glared up at the sky outside. There was nothing to look at except clouds and the far-off lights of the GeneCo tower. Some of her anger dissolved away. Her father had told her fairy tales when she was little about the stars you used to be able to see at night: Andromeda, Perseus, the Big Dipper. People said that if you went far enough out of town, you could still see them—but the thought of going out of town made her shudder. Too many bodies.  
   
She hugged herself and tried to see patterns in the clouds, but there was nothing; the clouds were either weak, frightened little things that dissipated in the slightest breeze or giant clumps that looked like nothing but clouds. She wished she could get angry again. It made her feel better, like she was doing something—but she was just angry because Graverobber had made her act her age.   
  
She was only seventeen, after all: when she argued with her father, that felt like very old indeed, but when she was shivering on a street corner, waiting for the only person she knew to come outside and say it was okay for her to show her face again… well, she felt like the youngest person in the world.  
   
Clutching the borrowed coat tighter around her, Shilo bit the inside of her cheek. A lump developed in her throat; she felt lost and alone, and in all the world she wanted nothing more than her father. He might have kept her locked in her room and poisoned her for seventeen years, but his voice always made everything okay, and there was nowhere safer than inside his arms.  
   
But she was supposed to be grown up now, so she would just have to stop thinking about that.  
   
Graverobber stepped out of the mass grave, whistling to himself. When he saw her, he stopped like his throat had been cut. "Why so serious, kid?"  
   
Shilo brushed the hair out of her eyes—it was just the wrong length to look nice but just the right length to bug the hell out of her—and cleared her throat, cleared away the memories. There was no time for that now. Later, maybe, if she got a longer moment away from him. "I was just… I was wondering what you were doing, that's all."  
   
He shrugged. He was looking at her far too closely for her liking—Graverobber had clear eyes that always seemed to cut through anyone's veil of bullshit and see to the festering soul beneath—but she didn't want to look away, for fear he would guess what she was thinking about and realize how fragile she really was. "I was making a deal with Rem. I figured it'd be easier if you waited out here. Rem, ah… he has a loose tongue sometimes. But he figures he can get you something to deal with that." He nodded at her stomach.  
   
Shilo grabbed the edges of her shirt, terrified, for a moment, that he was going to reach forward and pull it up to see her tattoo again. Graverobber was a very "touchy" person, and it made her very nervous. She looked him up and down, and he raised his eyebrows; a thrill ran down her spine and settled in her stomach. At least it wasn't all bad.  
   
O-o-O-o-O  
   
The moon was near setting; soon it would be dawn. Graverobber didn't care for the sun—he burned like  _that_. But he figured they still had enough time to hit one more mass grave before it rose, although he probably wouldn't make it home before morning. At least Amber had had the decency to remove all of the wanted posters with his face; enough people wanted him dead without the government's help. He led Shilo to one of the seedier cemetaries on the edge of town, where they had given up any pretense of burial and just dumped people in a pit to be burned. The smell was worse here, but at least it was outside. He climbed on top of a pile of rocks where a wall had once been and gestured for Shilo to follow.  
   
"So how is that guy going to help me?" she asked, picking her way up the rocks. He would have to get her some better shoes—the ones she had on screamed "suicide." Especially if they got caught. Graverobber offered his hand, but she shook her head.  
   
"If you break an ankle, I'm not waiting for you," he told her. He only half-meant it, but she didn't need to know that. Judging by the tilt of her head, though, she did know; instead of protesting, she rolled her eyes and joined him atop the pile of rocks. She pressed her hand over her mask, turning her face away from the breeze that blew over the graves.  
   
"How are we going to tell?" He looked at her and raised his eyebrows. Shilo shrugged. "You know, when I've got your weight in Zydrate. How are we going to know?" Her diction fascinated him; she said every word very carefully, let it leave her mouth completely before she started on the next. He thought of her singing voice and grinned, only his teeth visible in the dim light. Singing was like porn for him. He had never found Blind Mag attractive, but he came every time he heard her sing.  
   
Still grinning, he shrugged. Shilo looked at him oddly, but she always did that. "Eh, we'll just keep yours around until it looks about right. I try not to get too hung up on specifics—you go blind that way." Shilo blinked; Graverobber just grinned. Ambiguity was your friend, always always always.  
   
When she realized he wasn't going to say anything more, she shook her head and walked down into the burning grounds, one hand over her mask and the other delicately holding up her skirt, like a fancy lady waltzing to a garden party. And she thought  _he_  was weird!


	6. Sunlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graverobber shook his head and put his hands in his pockets. She made all these pretty lines drift into his head. He had tried to write songs once, when he was younger, when the world wasn't so cold, and she was making him remember what that was like: how it felt to never go anywhere without turning someone's speech into poetry, without hearing music in the clatter of ordinary things.

It took them longer than he'd expected; it was right before a burn, so the graveyard was packed, and damn if he didn't believe in saving for a rainy day. They only left because they ran out of extras. It was about seven or eight in the morning when they started for his home. Noticing that Shilo's eyes were dull and heavy with sleep, Graverobber gestured for her to wait for him on a bridge over a little fake river while he got them some breakfast.  
   
Hopefully, he wouldn't come back and find her raped or something. Asleep would be fine, but he didn't want to see her kicked around. She was like a little glass doll with limbs that didn't quite fit into each other, always in danger of shattering at the slightest noise, never quite sure of her movements outside of her home. For all that, she was a resilient little thing. The faint lines across her forehead and around her mouth spoke of defiance, of a will to live that had struggled through a sick mother and seventeen years of poison and that certainly wasn't about to give up now.  
   
Graverobber shook his head and put his hands in his pockets. She made all these pretty lines drift into his head. He had tried to write songs once, when he was younger, when the world wasn't so cold, and she was making him remember what that was like: how it felt to never go anywhere without turning someone's speech into poetry, without hearing music in the clatter of ordinary things.  
  
He paid a street vendor for a few hot dogs—never too early to start destroying yourself, he always said—and absently piled ketchup and relish on his. He left the kid's plain- best to start her out slow. No telling what she had eaten while living under Nathan's thumb, and, anyway, he doubted that whatever Nathan had used to keep her docile had half as many chemicals as his breakfast choice.  
   
Really, he supposed, life with her wasn't so bad. Sure, he had only spent a day with the kid, but he liked her, from her little apple-breasts and thin, taut legs to her ill-suited temper. He almost wished that she were around for his sake, not just as a means to an end. But nothing in life worked like that. Nobody gave you anything. Everyone could be bought; you just had to find the price.  
   
O-o-O-o-O  
   
Shilo was not asleep when he returned to her; she was sitting on the bridge railing with her legs dangling over the water, staring at her feet. What on earth was so fascinating about them? He felt a bit cheated; most of his behavior and looks were based on shock value, and that didn't work if someone refused to be shocked. Oh, well. She was scared of her own shadow—she'd find some reason for fear soon enough.  
   
He put the hot dog in front of her face; she blinked at it a few times before she took it from it. While he wolfed his down in two bites—never, ever,  _ever_  waste time with food, or somebody'll take it—she ate hers carefully, like food was the last thing on her mind. He needed to break her of that mindset or she'd never survive on the street. But who said that she had to? Every time she looked at him, he saw that she was planning to leave; every word that she spoke told him it would soon be the last one he'd hear.  
   
Although he didn't really like that idea, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do about it. It wasn't his job to judge the choices others made, only to watch. He knew that, but he still wanted her around. Shaking his head at his own stupidity, he flicked a bit of ketchup off his cheek and looked up at the lightening sky. Sunrises were beautiful this time of year.  
   
When they got ready to head back, Shilo still didn't seem very conscious; when she stumbled, he caught her arm and tucked it under his like it was the most natural thing in the world. And, in a way, it was. He was a boy and she was a girl, after all. Even if there was at least ten years between her age and his, even if the gap between her experience and his was unfathomable.  
   
Graverobber shook his head almost imperceptibly so he wouldn't disturb her—he didn't want to shake her out of her thoughts any more than he wanted her to guess at his. He would have to stand very still if he wanted her to come any closer. That didn't mean that he couldn't shake her up a little, but still.  
   
The further they got into the darker parts of town, the more Shilo woke up and the closer she clung to him. Her fingers closed around his wrist instead of laying limp against his hand, and she pressed close to his body. He could feel her heartbeat humming through her thin shirt; he wasn't sure if he wanted to comfort her or make her beat faster. Instead of making an overt attempt at either, he moved his hand from her arm to her shoulder and pulled her against his side.  
   
Her eyes wide in the darkness, she glanced up at him. He held her gaze, and she blushed and looked away. He said nothing, but he opened his door for her and waited until she went through to enter himself. Shrugging off his coat onto her couch, she asked, "So are you going to dye my hair now?"  
   
"I suppose," he murmured, glancing around. What had he done with that dye? "There's a chair over there somewhere. Drag it over by the mirror." He found the bottle and a few jugs of random colors. He hadn't used purple in a while; he would have to drag that out the next time his roots started to show.  
   
He caught her studying herself in the mirror; she blushed again and looked at her feet—sad little feet, just like the rest of her. As he passed, he patted her head absently. What color? He pushed her down in the chair and draped one of the old furniture clothes over her sides so she wouldn't get dye on her clothes. As he set things up, she followed his reflection in the mirror, frowning a little when he pulled the hose that he used as a sometimes-shower next to the chair. "That's cold water, isn't it," she muttered. She didn't expect a response, so he didn't bother with one.  
   
When he had everything the way he needed it, he stood behind her and considered what was left of her hair. He started running his fingers through it. Although she fidgeted away at first, her eyes met his in the mirror, and he had to resist the urge to lower his face into her hair. What did it smell like? "We can't dye your whole head," he murmured, still stroking her hair. "It would bleach out your face too much, and you don't need any help with that."  
   
"Says the guy who glows in the dark," she muttered without much spite. She seemed to be trying to reconcile herself to another strong feature change; when his hands stilled for a moment, she reached up and touched the jagged edges of one lock, as though saying goodbye.  
   
Clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, he patted her cheek. "Tomato, tomahto, sweet cheeks. Maybe we'll give you red spikes. That would look cool."  
  
"Green," said Shilo, and she tilted her face back to look into his face. Graverobber felt oddly proud of the half-defiant, half-teasting look on her face; she was getting used to this.  
   
"Both," said Graverobber, and Shilo nodded. "Now hold still for a second. This might sting." He dabbed a bit of the bleach on her shoulder. Shilo tilted her head back, looking confused.  
   
"What did—"  
   
"You'll know if it starts to sting."  
   
O-o-O-o-O  
   
A few hours later, Shilo's new hair was done and drying. She had retreated from the mirror when he finished, supposedly out of fear. "This is going to fry my hair," she mumbled. Now she was falling asleep on the side of her couch, and every once in a while her fingers would drift up to her hair and fingercomb the dry spots.  
   
"Not if you use the right conditioner," said Graverobber, stretching out on his bed. He wasn't particularly tired, but he never scoffed at the opportunity to sleep. You never knew when you would need it, especially in times like these. Nobody knew their footing with the Largo siblings in charge of GeneCo.  
   
"You do realize how gay that made you sound." Her face was sleepy but smug, like a cat's. Her face was thinner than it had been before the opera; her cheekbones were more pronounced, and there were permanent circles under her eyes.  
   
"That does not insult me. I am perfectly comfortable in my sexuality." Also, one couldn't snub giving a few blow jobs when one was starting in this business, but she didn't need to know that. It would give her the wrong idea, and he was getting less and less fond of that idea. The kid needed someone who wasn't trying to use her, either as a substitute or a tool, and sex would not accomplish that.  
   
"At least you are," Shilo muttered, rolling over on her back. She glanced up at the ceiling, made a face, and rolled over on her stomach. Graverobber looked up—feh, bloodstains. No big deal.  
   
Graverobber blew out the candles over his bed. There were still a few lit over Shilo's, though… eh, if the kid wanted them out, she could blow them out. He was tired.  
   
Sometime during the night, he thought he heard a high, shaky voice, like sunlight in his dark home. He smiled and shifted so he could hear her better.


	7. Amber

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Didn't know you were still interested in the street Z, Amber," said Graverobber, doing his best to stay cool. She had been making a beeline for him, but maybe this was just a chance encounter.
> 
> "Where is she?" Amber said, taking out her whip and snapping it against her thigh. "I know you're hiding that bitch, so tell me what you did with her." She must have been taking anger management classes while GeneCo was in transition; her anger lurked beneath the surface of her words, but it did not run rampant.

Graverobber woke up earlier than usual; when he peeked outside, the sun was just beginning to set. He wasn't going to get back to bed, so he decided to head out early, see if he could dig up a few buyers. Shilo had upset his usual routine.  
  
Speaking of… Graverobber glanced over at her, but she was sound asleep; her chest rose and fell in the sort of peaceful slumber he hadn't managed since he'd left his father's house. Briefly, he felt envious, and then he shook his head. She'd learn soon enough.  
  
He hadn't been on the street long when Amber showed up. Graverobber tried to duck into an alley, but she spotted him and fixed him with that glare that always made him half-frightened and half-horny. "Didn't know you were still interested in the street Z, Amber," said Graverobber, doing his best to stay cool. She had been making a beeline for him, but maybe this was just a chance encounter.  
  
"Where is she?" Amber said, taking out her whip and snapping it against her thigh. "I know you're hiding that bitch, so tell me what you did with her." She must have been taking anger management classes while GeneCo was in transition; her anger lurked beneath the surface of her words, but it did not run rampant.  
  
"You're gonna have to be more specific," said Graverobber, rolling up his vial pouch. He wasn't going to get any selling done today—he would have to cut tonight's harvest short. His cash stash was running low. "Who's  _she_?"  
  
Amber smacked the whip against his chest; Graverobber just smirked. She waved that thing around and acted like she was the toughest bitch in the world, but he knew better. She knew it, too, but she always tried to pretend different, especially when she had her clothes on. "The girl, dammit! Shilo Wallace!"  
  
Graverobber blinked a few times, doing his best to look like Amber had when she occasionally passed out in her own vomit. If only he'd been enough of a callous jerk to let her choke… but then Rotti would have found him, or maybe Luigi. "What, that kid you hired to do the job you wanted?" When dealing with any of the Largo siblings, Graverobber found, it was best to insult them as much as possible. They were all smarter than they seemed, but only when thinking clearly—and that was rare, especially if you made them mad. Her teeth bared, Amber shoved him into the wall. She held her whip up against his throat like it was a knife. Graverobber clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Somebody's been spending too much time with Luigi," he sighed, shaking his head.  
  
"Don't be an ass," Amber snapped, her eyes red as murder in the light from the fading sun. It made him hot, made him think of the old days when he didn't have to worry about confusing sex-thoughts with care-thoughts."I know that you have her. You're the only other person she knows, and you're the only person who would be able to get her communicator off. What did you do with her?"  
  
"Even if I did have her, which I don't, what makes you think she's still alive?" He smiled the way he had smiled at Shilo in the graveyard, but it didn't faze Amber; she was all too used to that look. He had practiced it on her while they were still involved. "If I saw the kid, what makes you think I wouldn't knife her for her jewelry? Times are tough these days, what with you getting your Z for free and making it easier for everybody else."  
  
Amber put one hand on her hips with her best "You can't honestly think I'm  _that_  stupid" face. And, like he'd said, he didn't. Amber was a slut, but she could run circles around her brothers—and most other people—when it came to sheer animal cunning and street smarts. She knew what had to be done, and she did it without a qualm. Hot. As. Fuck. "Why are you protecting her?" Amber ran the end of her whip over the bottom of his chin, her eyes focused on the little bit of scraggle there. "Does she fuck you?"  
  
She leaned forward and ran her tongue from his Adam's apple to the bottom of his ear and bit down hard. Graverobber let out a little shudder-moan that was half-guilty even as he put one hand on Amber's waist—to push her away or pull her close, he didn't know. "Why do you want a little girl," she murmured, still running her teeth along the outside edge of his ear, "when you could have me? Give me her, Graverobber, and I'll fuck you 'til you can't see straight. Tell me where she is."  
  
Graverobber was not used to experiencing moral conflicts. He had never thought twice about screwing Amber in the past (unless he hadn't eaten in a few days). Some part of him had always known it was wrong—Amber's head was far more fucked up than her body could ever be—but he was a guy. He wasn't going to turn down a girl like Amber, never ever ever.  
  
And yet he wanted to. If he did anything with Amber, he would end up telling her about Shilo—any girl seemed to have some sort of invisible leash around his dick that made him do anything she wanted so she would finish him off. And damn, but he hated to break a deal. There was nothing more to it than that now, but some curling, shrinking voice in him warned that it could end up being more personal, and that he should just give the girl up before he got himself in too deep. Shilo was the closest thing he had to a friend, and he'd forgotten how nice it was to be friends with a girl, to ignore the urge to just fuck her and leave.  
  
O-o-O-o-O  
  
Shilo watched with her heart in her throat as Amber bit down on Graverobber's ear and sucked. She wasn't really sure what that was supposed to accomplish, but his eyes rolled up toward the back of his head, and his hand clenched on Amber's hip. She hated watching him touch her— there was something voyeuristic about it, yes, but it also made her stomach muscles clench with something like anger, something like hate. She had always hated Amber, but it had never been this personal.  
  
Graverobber said something. Shilo was too far away to hear what, but his eyes were still half-lidded, like a lizard basking in the sun. Shilo wanted to run out into the open and slap him, but she was more afraid of being caught again than she was angry at him.  
  
She had no right to be angry, anyway; wasn't this the way things always went. Her breathing harsh and ragged, she clutched at her chest. He was going to tell her; he wouldn't be able to help himself. Amber would send her eunuchs after her, and she would have to go back. She would be alone in the night again, and there would be nobody to tell her to shut up and sing, no reason for her to hear her own voice and like it.  
  
He put one hand on her chest. Was he groping Amber? Shilo felt another sick shock of jealousy. After a moment, he shoved her away, shaking his head. Maybe—? Then he leaned forward and whispered something in her ear. Amber didn't react, but there could be only one purpose for moving like that. She wasn't  _stupid_.  
  
She couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe. And there was no medication to soothe her nerves, no father to stabilize her condition. The world was closing in; Amber yelled something, but Shilo couldn't understand the words. She stumbled into a different alley, away from them, and leaned up against a wall until the attack passed.  
  
Some part of her remained separate, watching the whole situation with a critical eye. This was different from her father, it supposed: nothing was confirmed, no matter what her heart told her, and, anyway, hadn't she been expecting this?  
  
But she wanted it to be a lie, she wanted it to be a lie so bad she could still feel it with every breath, and it hurt more than even her starving lungs.


	8. Panic Attacks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Did you tell her?" she asked, holding herself as though she was afraid she might fly apart. Graverobber raised his eyebrows, trying to pretend like he didn't know. "I saw what you two were doing. Did you tell her about me?"
> 
> Graverobber leaned back against the wall and did his very best impression of a man who doesn't care. Usually effortless-—for the most part, he didn't; he just liked Shilo better than pretty much everyone else in the world—but now it was a strain. He didn't like to lie, hated lies. He had desecrated corpses and made a business of leading people down the wrong path… but he didn't lie. "Kid, why would I do that?" 
> 
> Shilo hugged herself and said nothing for a long while. Then, quietly, "Because nobody else in my life has ever kept their promises."

It only took him a few blocks to realize he was being followed. As though to turn the corner, he stepped in that direction but whipped around instead. He had expected Amber—but it was Shilo, standing there with her sad little doll's face on. She looked kind of like she had been punched in the stomach and hadn't gotten her breath back. "Did you tell her?" she asked, holding herself as though she was afraid she might fly apart. Graverobber raised his eyebrows, trying to pretend like he didn't know. "I saw what you two were doing. Did you tell her about me?"  
  
Graverobber leaned back against the wall and did his very best impression of a man who doesn't care. Usually effortless-—for the most part, he didn't; he just liked Shilo better than pretty much everyone else in the world—but now it was a strain. He didn't like to lie, hated lies. He had desecrated corpses and made a business of leading people down the wrong path… but he didn't lie. "Kid, why would I do that?"   
  
Shilo hugged herself and said nothing for a long while. Then, quietly, "Because nobody else in my life has ever kept their promises."  
  
Graverobber sighed; it came from somewhere deep inside him and was a lot wearier than expected. "I made a deal with you, didn't I? I don't go back on that. If Amber finds out where you are, it won't be from me. And if she finds my place, I'll get you somewhere else to hide."  
  
She looked him up and down, checking every inch of his body for falsehood. When she found none, her face softened, but she kept clutching her sides, and her breathing was nervous and labored. "If you're lying," she whispered, "and Amber finds me, I swear I'll kill myself and find a way to haunt you for the rest of eternity."  
  
He couldn't help it—he laughed. He couldn't decide if she was staring at him oddly because she was surprised by his response or just thought he was being ridiculous. Probably both. He shook his head and wiped his eyes. He hadn't laughed so much in months. When he recovered himself, he made himself look sober and leaned toward her, setting one hand on her shoulder. "Shilo," he said, catching her eyes and holding them, "I'm gonna help you, okay? You don't have to worry about it."  
  
She stuck her chin out and looked at his face. There was none of the woman he saw in her now and then at that moment; she was all frightened girl, so there was nothing sexy or interesting about the contact. It was just two people facing each other over a chasm of mistrust that seemed more and more pointless. Quietly, "I'm going to trust you, but only because you used my name for once."  
  
Graverobber chuckled again. "Come on, kid. That Z don't harvest itself."  
  
O-o-O-o-O  
  
How could he walk so calmly? Always calmly! He would walk like nothing was wrong as the world fell apart around him (like it wasn't already) and act like she was the weird one for being frightened. She wasn't sure if she envied or hated it, but she did wish she could find her footing as easily as he did. The world was always shaking, always changing. And more and more he was the only thing she had.  
  
If she had thought this yesterday, it would have been a depressing prospect, but for some reason that confrontation had made things less fluid between them: she had a bridge now, something to hold onto. He had told her he wasn't going to betray her, and she had to believe that. It was  _weird_. Almost as weird as him.  
  
Although it wasn't near as bad now, she was still having trouble breathing, and her steps were slow and unsteady. When he noticed, he let out another deep sigh—this one was all acting, though, she could tell by now—and held out one arm. Shilo kept her own arms clutched tightly around herself, but she let him slide an arm around her shoulders and guide her down the street. He watched her face out of the corner of his eye. At least he wasn't trying to pretend like he wasn't looking anymore. That made her nauseous, and that would just be ridiculous. "So what did your dad tell you was wrong with you?"  
  
Something about his closeness made the catch in her throat a little smaller, and she could breathe well enough to speak in her normal voice instead of a rasp. "I had a blood disease, like my mom. That's what he said, anyway. I don't know what he was really giving me, but I don't think it really matters… Rotti made me think it was all in my head, and now I just don't know anymore." She hadn't ever spoken to anyone so candidly about her disease before—not even with her dad, who kept the details of her "condition" to a minimum—and it felt weird, but not in a bad way.  
  
She was trusting him with so much, and part of her still said it was the wrong way to go, but it was as impossible to avoid as ever.  
  
"It looked like a panic attack to me. My brother used to have them." His voice was light, like he is discussing the weather- didn't he realize he was talking about her  _life_ , the driving force of her existence for seventeen years? She glared at him, but he just smiled and rubbed her arm through her sleeve. "You really need to take things less seriously. It'll make your life much easier—not everything has to be an opera, you know."  
  
Shilo wrinkled her nose, but since her father's death, it had been harder and harder to hold onto a bad mood. Everything she had once been so angry about seemed so petty. What did her entrapment matter when the world was so horrible? She wasn't sure how to deal with anything now.  
  
Maybe he had a point. Damn.  
  
O-o-O-o-O  
  
The kid seemed to be over her attack now, but she kept frowning at the ground like it was the source of all her troubles. Graverobber sighed, but he didn't say anything. He had pitched in his two cents; that was all he could do. "How about this," he said after a moment. "Let's go somewhere stately tonight—I'll show you some real high-class corpses."   
Her expression blank, she nodded. She still looked like a little doll-girl, but it wasn't a charming comparison now. It was like something had broken inside her a long time ago, and the edges were just starting to show in her dull, hooded eyes. He could tell that she was sorting through them, and he could also tell that it would take a while. He would just do best to keep his mouth shut.  
  
He kept his arm around her, though; he liked it there. She was just the right height to fit into him without any awkwardness. Amber was too tall for that sort of thing.


	9. The Crypt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crypt he led her to was huge—much bigger than her mother's. Shilo tried to estimate its size, but it made her dizzy. The vast sense of space gave her a headache, so she clung closer to Graverobber and kept her head down. If she did that, she could almost imagine she was walking with her father to visit her mom. That was easier to deal with, even thought it made her heart twist.
> 
> Why did everything have to be so big? It would be so much easier to tame the world if everything were on the scale of her bedroom. But then there wouldn't be much of a world. Not that there was anyway. Ugh. It was just a big, stupid circle; she couldn't go anywhere without finding another trap—she needed to get out of this city!

raverobber said something every now and then as they walked, but she didn't listen or reply; she was trying to put things together. Since he was guiding her, she could ignore the world around her and focus on herself. She would be able to face the world if she could get herself together.  
  
Something finally caught her attention, though: "My dad buried my mom out there—put her here for safekeeping, you might say. Hardly anybody knows how to break into this part of town. Too many old security systems that still work."  
  
She blinked. He had mentioned a mother before, but she hadn't really internalized it; every character needed a dramatic backstory, after all, and that's all he was. But if that really  _was_  his past… She looked up at him, and Graverobber almost tripped; apparently, he had known that she wasn't listening and had been chattering mostly for his sake. He smirked a little, but it wasn't as sure as usual. "What, kid, did you think I was born fully formed from the depths of a dumpster? I ain't Athena."  
  
"Of course not," said Shilo, wrinkling her nose. "Athena was a girl." She held his eyes so he couldn't see if she was joking or being serious. It would be nice to mess with him for a change.  
  
O-o-O-o-O  
  
The crypt he led her to was huge—much bigger than her mother's. Shilo tried to estimate its size, but it made her dizzy. The vast sense of space gave her a headache, so she clung closer to Graverobber and kept her head down. If she did that, she could almost imagine she was walking with her father to visit her mom. That was easier to deal with, even thought it made her heart twist.  
  
Why did everything have to be so big? It would be so much easier to tame the world if everything were on the scale of her bedroom. But then there wouldn't be much of a world. Not that there was anyway. Ugh. It was just a big, stupid circle; she couldn't go anywhere without finding another trap—she needed to get out of this city!  
  
She glanced at Graverobber out of the corner of her eye, but he wasn't paying attention to her. His face had gone rather still and cold; he seemed to be focused on the inside instead of the outside for once… Well, that was irritating. Shilo supposed that meant she would have to be the one watching out for them this time, and she wasn't sure if she could do that. But she lifted her head and made herself look around every few minutes, checking for flashes of movement. Graverobber pulled away from her suddenly and walked over to what appeared to be a flower on the wall of the tomb. He pulled on it, and a door swung open. "Don't you use any normal doors?" she asked.  
  
He laughed softly, and his laughter echoed up and down the walls like the whispers of a ghost, but he said nothing. Watching her through hooded eyes, he gestured for her to go through, and she picked up her skirt and did so.  
  
There were no great piles of bodies here, no. This place was, to use his word, "high-class." Everything was gilt and broken glass; there were scorch marks on the walls that indicated someone might have once had a party here, but it was quite abandoned now. Everything was quiet and dead; Shilo hugged herself and stopped worrying about anything else. For some reason, this place was scarier than any mass grave. Those places felt vaguely sad—pathetic, almost—but this place tasted of nothing but death. The pretty surroundings just made it worse; death didn't fit into the fakeness.  
  
"Creepy, ain't it?" he asked, cutting across her thoughts. His voice was flat, and he was wearing that same grin he had tried on her in the graveyard, only this time she didn't let it work—at least, not the way he wanted it to. She held his gaze and let the shudders run down her spine, so sweet and strong they were almost visible. "Even I don't like coming here. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth, like. I can't stand it." Abruptly, he turned and kicked the cover off one of the tombs. It hit the ground with a sound much louder than either of them expected; she was glad she wasn't the only one who jumped a little.  
  
"Creepy isn't the word I would use," she muttered, turning to her own tomb. This would be trickier than the bodies she had dealt with before: it was almost… easy to take the Zydrate from those corpses. No one had loved them—at least, not enough to save them from the Repo Man ( _father_ , she almost thought, but she repressed it before it could surface) or to give them their own place to sleep. It was different here. There was a hush that the loud crack of the top of the tomb cover had done nothing to dispel; it was a blanket wrapped too tightly around both of them, smothering. And in that silence she could not avoid that the woman in this tomb had been someone's sister, wife… mother.  
  
She was preserved beautifully, of course. It was one of the few things that science had learned that wasn't entirely horrible. Or maybe it was, when the dead could be kept so perfect that there was no way to distinguish them from the living.  
  
"It's better if you try not to think about it, you know," said Graverobber. Shilo almost jumped out of her skin. He was so close behind her she could feel his breath on the back of her neck; it was frightening and dreadfully erotic at the same time. Unable to separate her arousal from her fear, she thought of his eyes as he licked his blood off the knife and shuddered again.   
  
Shilo turned her head. His eyes were much the same now: flat, like an animal's, with only a hint of the man she sort-of-knew peering out from behind them. Like his body was just an old house and he was somewhere in the attic, watching her without much interest. "Who are you?" she asked. Graverobber said nothing, just stared. "Who are you, really?"  
  
"I can't be who you want, kid," he whispered suddenly, his voice low and urgent. "I can't be your dad—Nathan's dead."  
  
Shilo flicked her eyes from his lips to his forehead and back to his eyes, which were still colder than the marble pressing against her bare, thin legs. "If you think I want you to be my father, you have a very strange idea of what my relationship with him was like."  
  
Graverobber looked her up and down, like he was trying to look like he was scoping out a corpse, but something gave him away. Then he put one hand on the back of her head and kissed her. It was not a sweet kiss: it was harsh, possessive. The first word that came to mind was  _frustrated_. With his free hand, he grabbed her shoulders and pulled the rest of her body to face him.  
  
It wasn't  _bad_ , she supposed, but it certainly wasn't how she had imagined her first kiss.  
  
He pushed her back onto the tomb so he didn't have to bend his neck so much, but his mouth never left hers. Now that she was getting used to it, she was beginning to understand the fuss—there were sparks crawling over her skin where he touched her, and although his mouth felt like it should have been awkward on hers, it was wonderful. He didn't try to touch her anywhere else, but his hands held her head and her shoulder in death grips.  
  
Slowly, Shilo reached up and touched his hair. It wasn't greasy, like she expected; it was actually rather soft, if a bit brittle. Felt better than her hair did right now, at least. Graverobber didn't seem to notice, even though he was running his fingers over the shorn ends of her haircut.  
  
After what felt like a very, very long minute, he broke away and pressed his mouth against her ear. "I can't be your boyfriend either, babe," he muttered, and his breath was hot and half-unpleasant against her skin.  
  
Shilo screwed up her face, unsure how to respond to that. To tell the truth, she didn't know what she wanted from him herself—her father had left a giant void in her life that she needed  _something_  to fill, but she had no idea what. Graverobber was coming very close to doing the job, though. There would always be gaps, she supposed, since her father had been the only person in her life for seventeen years, but he would probably be able to shore them up well enough so it would be like they had never been.  
  
She could see in his eyes, though, that he didn't want to, and it hurt a lot more than she had expected. Almost as much as watching her father's life drain away into the fake snow and her mother's dress. "Why do you keep thinking you know everything about me?" she demanded. "Nobody knows me." She wasn't really sure what that meant, but it seemed appropriate.  
  
He laughed like a crow and moved his mouth down to the place where her neck became her jaw. She had never thought of that part of her before, but now it was the focus of her attention. Without thinking, she pressed closer to him—the cold marble beneath her made his heat that much more attractive, even though his skin wasn't much warmer than the rock. "Oh," she said softly, more surprised than desirous.  
  
"Oh, kid," he sighed, and his voice was partly amused and partly horrified. With her? With himself? She couldn't tell, and his face let nothing away. The real Graverobber—if you could even say that—was still hiding in the background, letting this…  _character_  handle things for him.  
  
She felt a sudden rush of anger. What, she wasn't weird enough for him? She had plenty of weird! After all, he had never seen her bug collection. She grabbed his hair again and  _pulled_ , pressing her hips against his.  
  
Graverobber made a little noise, and, for half a second, his eyes were a lizard's like they were with Amber. It gave her a fierce rush of satisfaction even as her mouth filled with disgust. It was him, dammit, here with her. Then the lizard-look disappeared, and he was staring at her like he'd never seen her before. An awful expression passed over his face, and he shoved her down on the gravestone and ran out of the tomb.  
  
The words to call him back caught. There was no block in her throat now, so why were they betraying her? Shilo felt a lump rise to her mouth instead, and she turned away, even though he was gone—she didn't want to risk him seeing her cry. She hadn't even known what she wanted to say.   
  
O-o-O-o-O  
  
 _Does she fuck you?_  
  
Trying not to shudder, Graverobber crossed the street to his house. What the hell had  _that_  been about? He'd done a lot of stupid things, but that ranked up among the top ten, right up there with helping the kid in the first place. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He stopped at the corner of his building and clutched the wall as the concrete yawed and dipped like the prow of a ship in a hard storm. He tried to calm down, tried to think, but every time a rational thought surfaced, it ricocheted off the giant wall of disgust covering his mind.  
  
 _Does she fuck you?_  
  
He wasn't against ruining anyone's innocence—or so he'd thought. But there was something about that damn  _kid_ … that innocence was all she had. If he broke that, all he would ever see would be the broken doll-girl, not that beautiful, sexy,  _fragile_  woman he'd kissed in the crypt. That woman would turn to dust, just like everything else he touched. "Melancholy ain't like you, Graverobber," he told himself, but the words were hollow.  
  
 _Does she fuck you?_  
  
Well, it was personal now, wasn't it? He wasn't in love with the kid, but he could be— _him!_  Him, the guy who robbed corpses and occasionally raped them, the guy who only cared as long as you could pay. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Stupider than the scalpel sluts, just as stupid as anyone else who thought they could keep anything good in this world. He slammed his fists against the bricks of his building.  
  
 _Does she fuck you?_  
  
Amber's voice would not leave his head, and it was a thousand times worse than it had ever been during sex or a drug deal. At least then he could shut her up. The sides of his hands throbbed; he realized that he had scraped them on the stone and wished the pain was worse. Wouldn't anything go his way today?  
  
 _Does she fuck you?_  
  
Stupid. Stupidstupidstupid. And he had left her in the goddamn graveyard! Was it even worth swearing anymore? …yes. "Fuck," Graverobber muttered. He glanced down the way he had come, but then he looked at his hands and shook his head. She would find him if she really wanted to.


	10. Dragged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She looked down at her hands, half-surprised to see them curl into fists. Not only had he kissed and ran, he had left her here. Here. Among the dead in their gilded coffins and beautiful shrouds. Her breathing started speeding up, and she could feel another attack lurking off in the distance, but she would not allow it to happen again—no, dammit, no! There was anger fizzing under her skin now, and she wanted to keep it there. She would be damned if he could make her panic twice in one day.
> 
> No. No. She would go find him and do something to get her own back, and then she would leave. Damn her debt. Damn GeneCo, damn Amber, damn the whole fucking city. She. Would. Leave. And maybe she would finally live.

Shilo expected to feel some sort of horrible betrayal, as she had when she found out the truth about her father. Instead, there was only blankness. She didn't know what to think. There was too much to sort through—her first kiss (first, and with a man who had last kissed that  _woman_ , but…), a vague, throbbing ache of expected pain, aborted lust. Slowly, she sat back down on top of the tomb, paying no mind to the cold bite of stone this time.  
  
She looked down at her hands, half-surprised to see them curl into fists. Not only had he kissed and ran,  _he had left her here_. Here. Among the dead in their gilded coffins and beautiful shrouds. Her breathing started speeding up, and she could feel another attack lurking off in the distance, but she would not allow it to happen again—no, dammit, no! There was anger fizzing under her skin now, and she wanted to keep it there. She would be  _damned_  if he could make her panic twice in one day.  
  
No. No. She would go find him and do something to get her own back, and then she would leave. Damn her debt. Damn GeneCo, damn Amber, damn the whole fucking city. She. Would. _Leave_. And maybe she would finally live.  
  
O-o-O-o-O  
  
She showed up two hours later—substantially longer than it had taken him to get home, of course, but he doubted she had much sense of direction.  
  
But that was the ( _does she_ ) wrong ( _fuck you?_ ) way to go about this. Entirely the wrong way. He passed a hand over his eyes. He had been trying to sleep, but the gesture was mostly for show rather than to wake himself up. Biting the inside of his cheek so he could look more indifferent, he opened the door.  She was coiled, like a spring put under too much strain. So angry that she was past the breaking point and just hadn't realized it yet. Well, he deserved it. He always did. Leaning against the frame of the door, he said, "I was wondering when you'd show up."  
  
She slapped him. Hard. Her nails left a deep set of scratches that followed the line of his cheekbone. If she had done this in the tomb, he probably would have had her right there. Pain always turned him on. Now, though, it just made him feel kind of… sad. He had killed their strange, fragile arrangement, and he wouldn't even be able to get anything from the corpse, except maybe gangrene from the scratches. He could see in her face that she thought it would serve him right, too. He touched the scratches with the tips of his fingers and said nothing.  
  
"Are you happy now?" she demanded. "You have successfully made me mad." She didn't wait for a response; he could see her rage roiling and spinning behind her eyes like a developing cyclone. "Well, fuck you then! I don't need your help. I'll find my own way, and if I ever think of you again, rotting in this shithole of a city, I'll  _laugh_."  
  
She slapped him again, although this time it wasn't as violent—more desperate. He wasn't reacting, and it was only making her angrier. Well. That suited him just fine. Let her go. Let her leave. Maybe she  _would_  find somewhere better. If anyone could, it was her. After all, she had managed to do the impossible at every other turn. "Damn you," she muttered, turning her back on him.  
  
Graverobber took in a deep breath and let it out again, watching as she started off down the street to God knew where. "Good luck, kid," he muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets so hard that he ripped a hole in one of them. Dammit. He would have to steal a needle from somewhere now.  
  
O-o-O-o-O  
  
Desperation drove her into the heart of the city. She had no money to her name, and she had had quite enough of robbing from corpses for one lifetime. But the tattoo, that  _damn_  tattoo! She had almost forgotten about the fucking thing, and that was how they found her: the eunuchs.  
  
She had never liked to look at them; they creeped her out in ways she couldn't name, more than even Pavi's faces or Luigi's knives. They spoke of the things that people would do to each other in this day and age. They spoke of a world with no taboos, where nothing was too horrible to do to another person, especially if they owed you something or you wanted vengeance. It was not a world she wanted to live in, but she kept getting dragged back into it.  
  
Yes,  _dragged_  was certainly the operative word here.  
  
To Shilo's credit, she fought. When she spotted them following her, she ran as long and as fast as she could—but that was neither quickly nor far. Too many years of soft muscles, too many days of missed meals, too many panic attacks. They caught up to her without breaking a sweat, somewhere to the north of Sanitarium Square. No one would be coming to free her from them this time, so when she found herself in an alley, she decided she would at least make them pay for taking her.  
  
She kicked the closest one in the balls. She remembered as soon as she did it that he was a eunuch, but apparently that had happened late in life; he grunted and doubled over. It made no difference to the other one, though. He grabbed her around the waist and paid no attention to her bites and kicks and desperate scratches; he held her off the ground and kept her there while the other one recovered.  
  
She lashed out at him when he straightened up and took a needle from his belt, but he ignored her. Sweeping away the hair from her neck with a sort of strange tenderness, he pressed it against her carotid and pushed the plunger. There was brief, sharp pain as it punctured her skin , and then there was nothing but a half-question in her mind as the world drained away ( _is this what it feels like for the corpse_ ).  
  
***  
  
He wasn't at all surprised to see her face on the GeneCo ad screens again. She even had the fans now, the ones that Blind Mag had been so fond of. Instead of dancing with them, though, Shilo (the kid the kid the goddamn  _kid_ —but he couldn't think of her as that anymore; she deserved that, at the very least) held them coyly in front of her face. A half-attentive viewer would have thought she was inviting him in, telling him that GeneCo was okay, but Graverobber could see a warning in her eyes. They looked kind of how a corpse's eyes looked when you tilted the head back so that the eyelids slid open.  
  
After a while of watching them, he started sticking to the outskirts of town. The junkies would find him wherever he was, and there was no chance out here that he would catch even a note of her soulless singing as she performed for the real devil, not just a shallow imitator.  
  
O-o-O-o-O  
  
If Shilo closed her eyes and opened them quickly, it was almost like no time had passed at all. Her hair was a different length, yes, but they had evened out the cut so it looked boyish, almost trendy, and she finally had those green streaks she had always wanted. And her days and nights were just the same as they had been before, only now she hadn't the least glimmer of hope to warm her bed when she slept.  
  
No, none. She was alone now—well, if you didn't count her constant bodyguard (who walked delicately but always carried one gun in her hand and another on her belt) and the collar around her neck, disguised as her old cameo, that gave Amber twenty-four-seven surveillance options.  
  
Time ran together now, anyway. There were precious few moments to herself, precious few moments when she wasn't either with one of the Largo siblings (spending time with Luigi and Pavi had almost made Shilo like Amber—at least  _she_  didn't look at Shilo like she was something to eat), singing some new inane jingle, or performing strange, complicated arias that were really out of her range. There was nothing worth slowing her life down for, nothing to hang on to. There was no reason to sing in the night because it would just wake her bodyguard, and then Shilo would never get to go back to sleep.  
  
Sometimes, she thought about what Blind Mag had done. At the time, it had horrified her (especially after Rotti shot her father and she could no longer separate Nathan's blood from Mag's), but now it seemed… noble, almost. Blind Mag had known there was never going to be any other way out of GeneCo's hands, so she had at least died on her own terms, made her own kind of freedom.  
  
One night, she even managed to free one of the blades from her razor—time spent in the bathroom was the only piece she was promised, ever, and even then,  _someone_  was watching her—and held it to her wrist, but she couldn't. Every time the metal touched her skin, cold and… delicious, she heard Mag's quiet admonition: "All you're meant to, all I've failed to." Shilo had failed now (even though no matter how many times she thought her actions through, she couldn't find a better path), but still… the thought of disappointing the woman who had always been her hero made something in her rebel, made her stand up a little straighter in indignation.  
  
No.  _No_! She would not give up. She would never give up, not until someone took the choice away from her, not until there wasn't any blood left in her body. The thought of freedom, of leaving, was distant, like a star glimpsed behind a cloud, but it was still there. Whenever Amber screamed at her or Luigi looked at her with eyes full of flat hate, Shilo bit the inside of her cheek and thought of that evening when Mag had come to visit, of that distant star.  
  
O-o-O-o-O  
  
In the end, it all came down to pissing off Amber.  
  
A few days after Shilo started appearing on the ad screens, the posters started appearing, and the GeneCops started recognizing his face. This was nothing new, but, godammit, it made him mad. Amber  _owed_  him—quite a lot, actually. And taking the bounty off his head had paid that off in his mind. But now…  
  
It was what he told himself, anyway, and it worked well enough.  
  
O-o-O-o-O  
  
Breaking into GeneCo had always been a thousand times too easy. Technology was everybody's answer to everything these days, but that didn't mean it worked very well. After all, it only took some Scotch tape—or maybe an unconscious surGen, if you could find one—to foil a fingerprint scanner, and it was usually easy to hack passwords and shut off a few security cameras for a little while.  
  
Graverobber kicked the surGen into a corner. After a moment, he took the labcoa. It wasn't much of a disguise, but it was something. He took the guy's clipboard, too. Nine times out of ten, nobody would question a guy with a clipboard. People were sheep.  
  
The clipboard also had something marvelous—real paper. True paper was a commodity these days; trees were hard to find. Glancing around to make sure there was no one in the immediate vicinity, Graverobber took a pen from the pocket of his labcoat and flipped over one of the papers. He wasn't about to apologize, but he had to say  _something_  so she wouldn't slap him again (the scratches were scarring), and it was best to do it with a note. He had lingered around here too long.  
  
When Shilo slept, she did it on her side. She probably liked to watch the city as she fell asleep. There was a heavy dent in her pillow already, the only clear sign that someone slept here; otherwise, her bedroom was as bare and impersonal as hotel rooms you rent by the hour. It made him kind of sad, so he narrowed his eyes to keep himself focused. If he kept thinking along those lines, he would remember that it was mostly his fault she was here—she had started the whole thing by coming to him in the first place, but if he had been a little less stupid, she would never have returned to the streets—  
  
Goddammit.  
  
Graverobber shook his head and touched his coat—his real coat, not the one he'd borrowed from the surGen. The leather always soothed him, made him remember who he was. And that was why he had fled the kid, wasn't it? Not because he was afraid of breaking her, but because she had been  _digging_ , not with those sharp little nails but with her endless questions and those big doll-eyes of hers that made things he had never told anybody fall out of his mouth like it was the most natural thing in the world to want to tell her.  
  
If he left the note here, he was going right back into that, and he wasn't sure it wouldn't have the same result. But  _fuck_  if he was going to live with this guilt any longer. People could screw up their lives well enough on their own; they didn't need his help. Graverobber slid the note under her pillow and fled.


	11. Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Resisting the urge to glance behind herself, she took out the note. It was scribbled, almost illegible:I will be backstage at your next performance. Get a knife from somewhere, but don't do anything until you see me. Where was she supposed to—her eyes caught on the broken razor, still sitting on the edge of the sink. No one had come in to collect it yet. She picked up both the blade and the handle and pretended to toss them out. The handle went in the trash; the blade went up her sleeve, between her new communicator and her skin.

Shilo didn't know what to think when something crumpled under her head that night. It was an unfamiliar sound—paper, real paper, like in books. Not the clear plastic sheets that everyone used these days. She did her best not to show that she had heard it, sliding her eyes toward her bodyguard. The other woman stood at her window as she always did. There was no guessing what was going on behind those flat eyes, but Shilo didn't care. She rolled over on her stomach and slipped the note down the front of her shirt.  
  
Quietly, she stepped out of bed. "I need to go to the bathroom," she informed her guard. The woman's fingers slid down toward her gun, but she nodded at the door on the other side of the room. Shilo slid inside and closed the door behind her, her fingers trembling as she locked it. Who—? No one she had any contact with now would write her instead of speaking (or yelling, as would more likely be the case) in person. This had to be important, then, and something she wanted to keep as secret as possible.  
  
She knew there was a camera in the showerhead (she always stood with her back to the water; never mind that anyone observing her was probably a eunuch, her breasts were for her and her alone), and there was another one above the toilet. If she stood in the corner and pretended to adjust herself, then maybe—  
  
Resisting the urge to glance behind herself, she took out the note. It was scribbled, almost illegible: _I will be backstage at your next performance. Get a knife from somewhere, but don't do anything until you see me._  Where was she supposed to—her eyes caught on the broken razor, still sitting on the edge of the sink. No one had come in to collect it yet. She picked up both the blade and the handle and pretended to toss them out. The handle went in the trash; the blade went up her sleeve, between her new communicator and her skin.  
  
Her movements were automatic, instinctive. Her conscious mind was somewhere else, trapped between a rushing sense of relief and the terrible anger fizzing just beneath it. Someone had finally come to help her—but she couldn't believe that she needed that help, that she hadn't been able to muster the strenghth of will to either escape or make a final, grand statement like Mag. Graverobber still wanted something to do with her, the real one, not the character who pretended not to give two shakes of a lamb's tail about her—but, goddammit, all of this was his  _fault_. Oh, oh, oh—  
  
Shilo put a hand on her throat. Her heartbeat fluttered beneath her fingers like a bird beating against its cage with its wings, like that same bird in the final spasms of death. Her breathing was tight but controlled; she could sense another attack looming, but she wouldn't let it—not now, not later, not _ever_. If nothing else, she would escape her father's influence once and for all: she would breathe on her own even if her wings had been clipped.  
  
After a few moments, the threat passed: the storm clouds trembled, circled each other, could not form themselves into a true whole. Shilo clenched the fist holding the note as something else stirred in her: hope, like a ray of light finally breaking through the film over her eyes. It was okay if she couldn't do this herself. At least she was  _doing_  something.  
  
She had control over herself now, and she would never lose it again: not in the arms of her father, not in a crooked deal with someone who couldn't even trust her with his name, not in Amber's screeches and demands.  
  
She pressed down on the communicator so she could feel the cool metal against her skin again and smiled.  
  
O-o-O-o-O  
  
The costume was garish, ridiculous—she had no idea what she was even supposed to be or if it went with the song she was supposed to sing. She didn't speak Italian, and nobody had ever bothered to translate. She wanted to just rip it all off, strip down to nothing, and run out on stage. But she wouldn't be able to get it all off, would she?  
  
She glanced over her shoulder to make sure her guard wasn't looking, and she let the little razor slip out. What was she supposed to do with it, anyway? A cheap little thing like this couldn't cut through her communicator nor her collar.  
  
This morning, she would have felt dreadful panic like a noose tightening around her neck, but instead her back straightened a little, and she gripped the razor tightly but carefully, her mouth set in a grim line. She'd figure something out; if she couldn't, she'd at least make the choice to die herself.  
  
There was a muffled gasp from behind her: in her mirror, Shilo saw her guard double over in pain—and Graverobber, his hands covered in blood. He pulled out his knife and stabbed the guard again. This time, he found her heart; this time, there was no noise. He lifted his head and nodded at Shilo. Shilo's heart skittered and skipped, and for a moment she remembered that kiss.  
  
Something clenched inside Shil. She felt like she wanted to be angry but knew she only wanted anger because it would keep her from happiness, and she was still mad at him, dammit… even if his was the only friendly face left in the world. Instead of doing anything, she said, "Thanks."  
  
"Shh," he replied absently, tugging his knife out of the guard's thick vest. He inspected it for a moment, and then he licked some blood off the side. Making a face, he spat it out. "Fake." He nodded at the door and held out one hand for hers.  
  
Shilo frowned a little, but now was not the time to dicker over semantics. She put her hand in his, and the two of them ran back behind the mirror, into the bowels of the opera house.  
O-o-O-o-O  
He figured they had about five minutes tops before somebody noticed she was gone or that her guard was dead. It wasn't optimal—especially since her security was top-notch now—but it'd have to do. He spotted a good hiding spot, a closet with a small, thick door, and pulled her inside. Putting his knife inbetween his teeth—the too-thick blood that coated it tasted like plastic—he gestured for her to hold up her wrist. He put one hand around it (she had thin wrists, wrists that would snap under the slightest strain) and handed her the knife. "Start cutting your collar," he whispered, "but keep it against your skin. It'll only register if it loses contact."  
  
He turned his attention to the communicator. He had never seen this type exactly—it was a new model and a lot fancier—but they were all the same on the inside, save a few bells and whistles. Most technology was like people: you could only deviate from the original design so much.  
  
She made a face as she wiped the blood off on her skin, but her eyes were hard and glittered in the darkness like chips of diamond. He felt her name behind his lips, unbidden, but then the communicator popped open. Just as slutty as Amber, just as willing to show off. Graverobber grinned with his tongue between his teeth.  What could he mess with in here?  
  
"What do I do with it?" Shilo asked. Graverobber held up a finger. There were few wires in this version. What to do, what to do… Taking a risk—if it blew up, they'd both be dead, but at least it would save them the trouble of getting out of here—he pinched two wires and plucked them out at both ends. The communicator let out a cautionary but feeble beep. His grin widening, Graverobber plucked another one, and the communicator went dead.  
  
With that taken care of, Graverobber lifted his head and inspected the collar. There was a little bug under the cameo—very blunt and to the point. If it left her skin, it would explode. "Keep it in your hand, and hold it tight. We'll ditch it somewhere once we get out of here."  
  
He moved to open the closet door, but she grabbed his hand. "If things get real again—" and he could see in her eyes the thousand, shifting meanings of  _real_ , and she clutched his hand like there was nothing else to hang onto, nor would there ever be, and he knew that he would never be able to lie to her anymore, "—are you going to leave me?"  
  
He licked his lips, tasted the plastic blood, couldn't speak. He shook his head and squeezed her hand.  
  
O-o-O-o-O  
  
They ran, and even though Shilo could hear the shouts of the guards chasing after them, even though she felt a bullet graze her cheek as they ran out the back door of the opera, even though she heard the alarms sounding, she couldn't deny the sense of relief blooming inside her chest, like a daisy under the first sunlight. And then they couldn't run anymore.  
  
A deep crevasse, containing a river of something that might have been water in another lifetime, ran out from the back of a factory, cutting off their escape: it was in front of them, the mob was behind, and the only route to the side led to a giant fence that was undoubtedly electric. Graverobber glanced behind them, then forward again, and pulled her down into a crouch as another gunshot rang over their heads.  
  
Funny, there wasn't a hint of a catch to her breath now.  
  
"Do you trust me?" he hissed in her ear, his voice low and his breathing harsh. She blinked at him, her mind scattering in a hundred directions as the breeze from a shot ruffled her hair. "You can't do anything by halves now- if you trust me, then trust me. You have to." She nodded, swallowed hard. He grabbed her other hand and stole the cameo from it—making sure that the bug never broke contact with either of their sweaty palms—and pushed her over the side of the drop. Shilo thought she screamed, but she couldn't hear it over the explosion. Someone grabbed her flailing arm as she fell and pulled her close, but it could have been a Gentern for all she knew: the black water was suddenly behind her eyes, and she knew no more.  
  
O-o-O-o-O  
  
It would have been hard enough to keep his head above water; making sure Shilo didn't drown was almost ridiculous. But, at the very least, it was an excellent escape. Few people knew how to swim—or even just float—these days. Nobody would think he did. When they were far enough away from the heart of the city, he started swimming instead of drifting, dragging Shilo behind him and hoping she didn't swallow too much water.  
  
He pulled her up onto shore at last. A graveyard. Fitting. He rested her on the fake grass and pressed one hand to the side of her neck to make sure she was all right. Her pulse was fine, but she was freezing—a thin dress, a cold night. Damn, damn, damn! The inside of his jacket was drier than anything else, so he took it off and wrapped it around her. Rubbing her hands in his to return a little color to both (not that there had been much to begin with), he sat back on the grass and waited for her to wake up.  
  
As always during quiet moments, a dozen pathways appeared in his mind like cards in a deck: ( _leave her_ ) that one could go because he didn't break promises, ( _run_ ) no, he just said  _no_ , and he wasn't going to carry her, ( _stay, catch your breath_ ) we have a winner.  
  
Graverobber let out a little sigh and stretched out on the itchy plastic greenery beside her. After a moment, he put one hand on the side of her neck to make sure her heart was still beating, and a little smile drifted onto her face.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The memories slammed into her stomach, and suddenly she had to fight for every breath— but fight she would, yes indeed. She had never been this angry in her life, and that was saying something. "I'm— " gasp, "going— " gasp, "to— " gasp, "kill you!" She reached for him, her hands searching for something, anything, to slap, but he grabbed her wrists and pulled her arms around his waist.

Her fingers were freezing. For a moment or two, as her mind drifted out of the dark water and back into conscious thought, she thought they were gone entirely until she realized someone was rubbing them. She blinked a few times. What in the world—?  
  
"Kid?" After a moment, quietly, "Shilo?"  
  
She made herself open her eyes. Her father had once told her about the effects of positive reinforcement, and she had to respond to that, or Graverobber would never stop calling her "kid." Or "sweet cheeks." She shuddered, and then she couldn't stop. She was so cold! And wet, couldn't forget wet. What—?  
  
The memories slammed into her stomach, and suddenly she had to fight for every breat— but fight she would, yes indeed. She had never been this angry in her life, and that was saying something. "I'm— " gasp, "going— " gasp, "to— " gasp, "kill you!" She reached for him, her hands searching for something, anything, to slap, but he grabbed her wrists and pulled her arms around his waist. Her anger popped like a soap bubble in a sudden gale, and whatever horrid insult she was going to throw at him was suddenly out of reach.  
  
"Geeze, kid, you'd think you didn't know how to say thank you," said Graverobber, folding his arms around her. She realized she was wearing his jacket, but she was still freezing—her dress was hardly more than a slip. As though he sensed this, one of his hands started rubbing her back in small, hard circles. The friction was blissful.  
  
But she was still mad, dammit. "You could have warned me," she muttered, her face pressed somewhere between his chest and his shoulder.  
  
"Would you have jumped?" Shilo frowned, but he had a point: under the circumstances, it was the only thing he could have done. But  _still_! She tugged at the bottom of his shirt with a little noise of agitation. Graverobber sighed, and it came from somewhere deep within his caverns and hidden places.   
  
Lifting her head so she could see his face, she frowned. His eyes were sad, but in a quiet way. _Resigned_ , that was the word. But behind all that there was a spark like a hidden ember, like the one or two true smiles he'd shown her. Like that kiss. "For the record," he whispered, "I am sorry. I shouldn't have done that."  
  
"No, you damn well shouldn't have," said Shilo, but her voice was calmer. He opened his mouth, but Shilo shot him a dirty look, and he closed it with a hint of his usual smirk tugging at his lips—but it _wasn't_  his usual smirk, because he wasn't trying to use it to intimidate her or anything stupid like that. "It doesn't matter which incident you're referring to—it all applies. But I accept your apology." Suddenly disquieted, she rested her head back against his chest. "…Did you mean it?"  
  
His other hand came up to her hair and began to stroke, gently. "I don't break my promises," and he hesitated a little, "Shilo."  
  
"That's better," Shilo murmured. "Stick with that, and we'll get along just fine." She smiled; she was still very tired, but she was warmer now, and, for a moment or two, the last few weeks—the entire period of time since her father's death, if she were to be honest—were all okay.  
  
"Come on,"  he said after a moment. "Let's get moving. That won't have thrown them off for long."  
  
O-o-O-o-O  
  
He took them back to his place simply because he had no other ideas. There was nowhere else he could take her in the city, not with her half-asleep anyway. He was practically carrying her by the end of their walk (although he was leaning on her quite a bit himself). He kicked the door shut behind them—there was no way he'd be able to lock it; he'd be lucky if he'd stay conscious long enough to achieve the last thing that needed taking care of—and dumped Shilo on his bed. She made a feeble protest, but her words slurred together, and her eyes were already drifting shut. Shaking his head a little, Graverobber pointed at the mattress. "I'll be back in a while, all right? Don't go doing anything stupid while I'm gone."  
  
Shilo buried herself under his blanket (hopefully, she wouldn't wake up enough to ever notice what it looked like; that blanket was not for the faint of heart) and made a noise that might have been "okay." Graverobber shook his head and ducked out of the room again.  
  
O-o-O-o-O  
  
He shook her awake a while later: could have been an hour, could have been five minutes. It made no difference to Shilo's tired brain. She realized with some surprise that she was happy to see him—not because he could help her or because she would finally be able to yell at him or any such nonsense. She was just… happy, and she had to bite her bottom lip to keep from smiling. In one hand, he held a little square box that looked sort of like a cross between a magnet and a UPC reader. "Huh—?"  
  
Graverobber handed her the… thing. When she blinked at him, he turned his back on her. "It's for your tattoo… I need my jacket back." She pressed it into his hands, clasped behind his back. "Thanks." He glanced at her over his shoulder for a moment and away, his eyes sliding along the wall. "Use it like an eraser."  
  
Shilo watched him for a moment until she was sure he wasn't going to look, then hiked up her skirt so she could see the tattoo. Even in the dim light from the few candles he'd lit while she was asleep, it glimmered like a dark dream. She scrubbed the little box against it a few times, and it was gone, like it had never been; she had to touch her skin a few times to reassure herself that it really wasn't there anymore.  Pulling her dress back down over her knees, she put the box back in Graverobber's hands. "Thanks."  
  
His mouth quirked to one side, he glanced at her again. "So I get yelled at when I save your life, but I do you a little favor and I actually get gratitude? You need to work on your priorities."  
  
Shilo wrinkled her nose a little; she noticed that most of his statements had lapsed into the imperative, like he didn't want to call her nicknames but couldn't bear to call her her real name. It was irritating. "Yes, I suppose that's the way it goes," she replied in her best prim voice.  
  
Graverobber snorted and turned around to face her, setting his hands in his pockets. He tensed a little, like he wanted to say something, but then he shook his head and shrugged off his coat. "You gonna move so I can go to sleep?"  
  
Tilting her head back so she could look into his face, Shilo shook her head. "I'm comfortable where I am, thank you very much."  
  
Graverobber tilted his head, but then he grinned a little and sat down on the bed beside her. "Then scoot over. You're hogging the blankets." She obliged and rolled over on her side; he leaned over and blew out the candles. After a moment, she felt his back against hers, and he pulled the blanket over both of them. She was still tired, but before she got the chance to really drift off, he spoke. "Hey, Shilo."  
  
She tilted her head so she could see his face. "Mmm?"  
  
Staring at the ceiling, he rested one hand on her thigh. It was pleasant, neither sexual nor platonic but a comfortable distance from both. "It's David." She blinked at him. "My name. It's David. Now you see why I let people call me Graverobber all the time—David ain't too intimidating." Shilo put her hand over his with a little sigh; she thought about speaking, but instead she pressed her face into the side of his neck. That seemed to be enough.  
O-o-O-o-O  
  
When he woke up—some fleeting, feeble part of his brain screaming that he had slept too long and that he was definitely in danger—she was sitting on the edge of his mattress, wrapped in his coat and staring off into the darkness. When he lifted his head, she looked at him, her eyes little moons circling empty space. Her mind was far away, but he knew what she was thinking about. He sat up and drew his legs against his chest, wrapping his arm around his knees. "So when are you leaving?"  
  
His voice surprised him. He had told himself he couldn't (wouldn't) act around her anymore, couldn't be that person to her anymore, but most of him had been sure he wouldn't follow through. But there was his heart, raw, one of the only ones in this world that didn't bear a GeneCo stamp bleeding out in front of her.  He didn't want her to leave, knew she was going to. The only question was what he was going to do.  
  
Shilo drew his coat tighter around her, but her eyes were still far away; she was listening, though only just. "What makes you think I want to leave?" she asked. Her words were empty, and they fell to the ground like dead leaves. She knew it, too; she hugged herself, suddenly, and she looked over at him with her eyes very large and very scared. But they were very  _here_ , and that was all that mattered to him.  
  
He sat up quickly and pressed his hand against the side of her face- her skin was cool, smooth. But he would not be denied. "When?" She looked at him in the dim half-light from the shaded windows and shrugged. He put his other hand on the side of her neck, ran his fingers down from the curve of her jaw to the edge of her shoulder. There were words he wanted to say, but they bunched up, hid, avoided his gaze. None of them were good enough: none of them were  _true_  enough.  
  
It was all he deserved, he supposed, for avoiding it this long; he ran his thumb along her cheekbone and sighed. He wanted to kiss her again, but that would only get in the way. "Whatever," he muttered. "It doesn't make a difference, I guess."  
  
She made a soft little noise, like a cat, and touched his hand. "I don't know," she replied. "I mean, I had a plan, but— " She stopped and looked away, her face unreadable. Her fingers ran back and forth over the back of his hand, but it was an absent gesture, empty of any affection or meaning. To stop her, he flipped his hand over and grabbed hers.   
  
As she let out a deep breath, her face turned back toward his, slowly. All of the girl had burned away in their time apart: she was a woman now, uncertain of herself, but still an adult. "I had a plan, but it doesn't really mean anything now. I realized… I can't do this myself. I thought I could just—just leave, and maybe I could get that far," her face darkened a little, "or maybe I'd just get caught again, and this time they'd find some way to make me stay. And I don't know what I'd  _do_  if I got out. I don't know if there are other cities or where to find them—I can't even find food for myself!" She broke off with a frustrated little noise, and her free hand clutched the air like it was Amber's (or maybe her father's) neck.  
  
She sighed deeply, and he could almost see the toxins fleeing her: seventeen years of a self-fulfilling prophecy, of being told she couldn't do anything. "I can't," she whispered after a moment, and her eyes lifted and caught his, "but you can." She bit her lip, and it made her adorable and sexy at the same time.  
  
Graverobber sat back and let out a deep breath. There was really only one answer he could give, but it was more than words: it was more of himself than he'd ever given to anybody, even if only by implication. Still, though… He leaned forward until their faces were almost touching. "I said I wouldn't leave, didn't I?"  
  
Shilo smiled, and it was like a sunrise—a real one, like in old movies. He smiled back, and that was real too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, you quiet little Repo! fans you.


End file.
